In Hartford, It’s 2013 This Election Day.

Good luck trying to figure out who’s on the ballot in this year’s Hartford municipal election. Only seats on the Board of Education are before the voters. But which seats? Until today, the city website was still featuring only the sample ballot from 2013. If you executed the right clicks through to the Secretary of the State’s site, you could download and view the sample ballot for Tuesday’s contest, but there was no indication on the city page that there is an election on Tuesday.

An inquiry from Daily Ructions prompted cheerful City Clerk John Bazzano, a veteran of Hartford politics, to say they hadn’t noticed the 2013 sample ballot was still the only one on the site. Bazzano pointed out that they are not required to post a sample ballot. They are taking down the four year old one, but not before screenshots were secured.

We are told over and over and over again how Hartford is short changed in its education funding. That more than $20,000 per pupil, per year is not enough. Education, local politicians insist, is an urgent issue. Not urgent enough, however, to put up-to-date information on the place voters will go to find information. We know plenty of people wish it were 2013 again in Hartford, but it isn’t.