Editor’s Note: This story by Karla Ciaglo was originally published Nov. 10 on CTNewsJunkie.com. Both CTNewsJunkie.com and olwenonline.com/ are members of the national Local Independent Online Newsorganization.
EAST HARTFORD—With the average rent in Connecticut near $1,975, a new poll from the Regional Plan Association found that nine in ten residents believe Connecticut is “not doing enough” to expand affordable housing. Nearly as many blame outdated zoning rules and infrastructure limits for the problem.
With a special legislative session scheduled this week to pass a bill aimed at addressing the issue, Gov. Ned Lamont, legislative leaders, and a coalition of local officials gathered in East Hartford to unveil what they called a reset: a bipartisan housing proposal that replaces the mandates of the vetoed House Bill 5002 with incentives, infrastructure investment, and regional planning.
“This is a very important bill that gives people the incentives,” Lamont said. “They know the state is going to be there as their partner when it comes to sewer and water, higher reimbursement on schools, more rail train stations — doing everything we can to help build the housing we need.”
The measure keeps key features of the earlier proposal while answering the loudest objections from small-town officials …
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).
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.
