You asked if any problems have arisen since the legislature enacted PA 03-188, which allows couples to apply for marriage licenses in any town where (1) one of them resides or (2) the ceremony will be performed.

We spoke with Windsor Town Clerk Kathy Quin who described problems she has encountered in complying with the new law. Under prior law, marriage licenses were issued and recorded by the town clerk for the town where the ceremony was to take place. The law still requires officiants to return completed marriage certificates to the town clerk who issued it.

But now, when an issuing town clerk gets a completed marriage certificate, she may or may not be the correct official to record it. If hers is not the town where the ceremony occurred, she must forward the certificate to that town clerk, generally at month’s end. That clerk then makes entries on the certificate bearing her signature and the date she received it for recording, affixes her town seal, and mails copies to the issuing town, the couple, and the Department of Public Health. However, due to the volume of mail, the issuing clerk may have already signed the acknowledgment of receipt before realizing that the certificate should be acknowledged and recorded in the town of occurrence instead.

Apparently town clerks have been given different, and somewhat contradictory instructions for handling incidents where the certificate was signed by the wrong town clerk: (1) white out the wrong clerk’s signature and forward the document to the correct location, (2) never white out the signature – cross out the signature and date and send it on, or (3) require the couple and officiant to get together and sign a new certificate. And there appears to be some inconsistency among town clerks’ willingness to record certificates bearing cross-outs.

Legislative options include: (1) repealing PA 03-188 and returning to the old law, or (2) enacting legislation that recognizes the validity of any town clerk’s signature acknowledging receipt of a returned marriage certificate, so long as it is forwarded to and actually recorded in the town of issuance.

SP: dw