Voting Do's and Don'ts

While in line this morning at a school in Simsbury (which is very strange to begin with), all I saw were happy faces. People greeting each other and saying "good morning" and "thanks for coming out." There was no Jerry-Springer-worthy action at the polls to report on, except for one mild incident of a fresh-out-of-high-school young man who seemed quite the eager beaver to vote this morning. He strolled up with a bright smile on his face, proudly donning his Barack Obama T-Shirt with a blown-up image of the candidate's face. To this young man's dismay, the election officials requested that he remove his shirt, to which his response was, "but it's cold." I'm not sure he got it right away, but eventually turned his shirt inside-out and proceeded to his voting cubicle. This started my thinking as to what other rules are enforced on election day that I might not know about, since, to be honest, though I understand why, I was not aware you couldn't wear political paraphernalia to the polls.

So I Googled voting rules and regulations in Connecticut and found some interesting "did-you-know" facts:

-- Connecticut is among the top 15 states with

-- the largest disparities between citizens of color and officials of color in
all elected positions
-- the largest racial disparities in voter turnout
-- the largest low-English-proficient population