Editor’s Note: This story was first published on Nov. 3 as a Staff Report by CT News Junkie, and is republished here with their permission. The Lyme and Old Lyme data has been added by Elizabeth Regan.
Before polls opened this morning for Election Day, more than 170,000 Connecticut residents had already cast a ballot.
That includes 1,553 early voters in Old Lyme and 530 in Lyme, according to local voting officials.
Data from Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas’ office shows voters also returned more than 20,000 absentee ballots, which will be counted today.
In Old Lyme, Deputy Registrar of Voters Katherine Thuma said turnout over the 14-day early voting period consisted of 675 Democrats, 461 unaffiliated voters, 402 Republicans and 15 minor party voters. That’s compared to total registered voters as of Tuesday that totaled 2,546 unaffiliated voters, 1,963 Democrats, 1,644 Republicans and 97 minor party voters.
By mid-day Tuesday, Thuma said 155 absentee ballots had been processed.
Lyme Registrar of Voters Judith Davies and Dottie Wells said early voting brought in 253 Democrats, 165 unaffiliated voters, 103 Republicans and 9 minor party voters. While a breakdown of the affiliations of all registered voters wasn’t immediately available on Tuesday, data from Thomas’ office as of Oct. 17 shows there were 734 unaffiliated voters, 717 Democrats, 444 Republicans and 31 minor party voters.
Wells said 31 absentee ballots had been received as of Monday.
Of the 170,920 early voters to cast a ballot as of Nov. 2, 83,479 are registered Democrats, and 36,525 are Republicans. Another 48,830 are not affiliated with either party and 2,085 are classified as “other,” Thomas’ office said.
Of the 20,197 absentee ballots, Democrats returned 10,277 and Republicans 4,402 with 5,299 unaffiliated and 219 others.
These totals are audited throughout the early voting period, according to Thomas’ office.
Stratford, driven by a contentious mayor’s race, continues to lead the way with 4,743 early voters, followed by Milford with 4,414, Greenwich with 3,706 and Hamden with 3,679. Trumbull (3,616) rounded out the top 5. The rest of the 10 top early voting communities were Norwalk (3,481), Fairfield (3,410), West Hartford (3,057), Stamford (2,771), and Bristol (2,744).
Last year, in a presidential election year, nearly 750,000 voters took advantage of early voting to cast a ballot. That represented just under a third of Connecticut’s 2.3 million registered voters.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated with early voting and voter registration totals from Old Lyme voting officials and again with additional Lyme numbers.
