HARTFORD, Conn. – July 23, 2010, Dan Reale lodged a formal complaint against Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz with the Office of State Ethics, the State Elections Enforcement Commission and the Federal Election Commission. The complaint charges that the “Affiliate and Participate” awareness campaign by Bysiewicz’s Secretary of State office is a misuse of state authority and resources that solely benefits the Republican and Democratic Parties.

Dan Reale is a Libertarian currently petitioning to be on the ballot for U.S. House in Connecticut’s 2nd Congressional District. Dan was a recent guest on our Free and Equal radio show and that interview can be heard at our website.

Connecticut has a closed primary system where voters must become a member of the Republican or Democratic Parties in order to participate in those two parties’ primary. The “Affiliate and Participate” campaign includes TV and radio commercials with Susan Bysiewicz urging unaffiliated voters to join the Republican or Democratic Party and vote in their primary.

The three paragraphs below are copied from a July 8 press release from the Connecticut Secretary of State office titled “Bysiewicz Urges Connecticut Voters to ‘Affiliate and Participate’ in August 10th Primaries,” which can be found in pdf format on their website.

Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz today urged unaffiliated voters across the state to enroll with the Democrat or Republican Party by August 9th at 12:00 p.m. so they can vote in the statewide primaries Tuesday August 10, 2010.[...]

“I urge Connecticut’s 840,000 unaffiliated voters – the largest group of our state’s nearly two million active registered voters – to enroll with the Democratic or Republican parties so they can cast ballots and make sure their voices are heard in the primaries,” said Secretary Bysiewicz.[...]

To get the message out to voters, Secretary Bysiewicz has been engaged in a public awareness effort to get unaffiliated voters to enroll as Democrats or Republicans through Public Service Announcements on radio and television, and newspaper Op-Eds, meetings with Editorial Boards, radio and television interviews throughout the state.

“Bysiewicz is clearly asking independents and voters in other alternative political parties to join the Republican or Democratic Parties,” said Christina Tobin, CEO and founder of Free and Equal Elections Foundation. “Joining one of the two power parties is only one way voters can affiliate and participate in our election process. Bysiewicz is blatantly failing to educate voters about all of their options by concentrating her message to urge people join the two political parties she mentions.”

“Many candidates from several alternative political parties are collecting petition signatures right now trying to get on the ballot,” Tobin said. “Voters can also go affiliate with those other parties or participate in choosing which candidates compete in the November election by signing the petitions to put those candidates on the ballot. Bysiewicz is using her office to solely promote membership in the Republican and Democratic Parties with this public campaign and I believe that is wrong. Why isn’t she running TV commercials asking voters to participate in candidate selection by signing petitions for Green, Libertarian, Independent, Working Families or Connecticut for Lieberman party candidates?”