New Britain Town Clerk Mark Bernacki casts his ballot in the same manner every year.
“I enjoy going on Election Day. I get to see my neighbors,” he said. “I go into the polling location that’s part of my neighborhood early and I get to see my neighbors and talk with them briefly. Some people like that more because it’s more of a social event for them. That’s what I like about it.”
With the second year of Connecticut’s Early Voting Program, which allows voters to cast ballots by mail or in their hometown drop boxes, Bernacki said he’s pretty confident most people will cast their ballots the way he does this year — on the day of the election and not before.
As of Wednesday, 117,655 ballots were cast statewide through the state’s early voting program, or about 4.9% of the state’s 2,401,565 registered voters, since it began Oct. 20 this year. Another 17,288 absentee ballots were cast.
“I think people are starting to appreciate the flexibility of early voting,” Bernacki said. “I have heard from a few people that they would prefer to put their ballots directly into the tabulator instead of into an envelope, which is similar to an absentee ballot. Hopefully the Legislature next year will change the law to allow the voter to put early voting ballots directly in the tabulator.”
Whether the 117,000 or so early voters is good or bad is difficult to tell, according to Bernacki and Roger Senserrich, spokesman for the Secretary of the State’s office. Given that the program’s first year was a presidential election, there’s not much to compare, they said.
But Bernacki said he thinks the program is catching on.
Stratford and Milford led the top 10 early voting municipalities as of Wednesday, with 3,535 and 3,240 votes cast. Hamden (2,749 votes), Trumbull (2,601), Greenwich (2,439), Fairfield (2,241), Norwalk (2,156), West Hartford (1,944), Bristol (1,917) and Stamford (1,888) round out the list, respectively.
Clerks in several of those towns see a few commonalities. Stratford and Milford both have heavily contested mayoral races. In Stratford, incumbent Republican Mayor Laura Hoydick faces challenger Dr. David Chess, a Democrat. Milford had record-setting amounts of fundraising by Republican incumbent Anthony Giannattasio and former interim Mayor Richard Smith.
Hamden has four contestants vying for mayor — three Democrats and a Republican — after the Democrats held a five-way primary. Democratic two-term incumbent Lauren Garrett dropped out amid allegations that she and the town’s Legislative Council had lost control of town finances. The town has failed to file an audit on deadline since 2023, and just underwent a revaluation that left taxpayers with sticker shock.
Hamden Republican Registrar of Voters Laura Santino said the wide-open races for mayor probably are responsible for Hamden making the top 10 list. The fact that the mayoral and town clerk terms expand from two to four years probably also makes a difference.
But the number still feels low to her, Santino said.
“I personally think that I would love to see the numbers higher, but not many people come out from municipal elections. The presidential elections draw people out,” Santino said. “When you have 35,000 voters and you’re only getting not even 10% of the voters to come out by now, I would like to see people that are concerned about their town to come out and vote for the town elected officials.”
Milford City Clerk Peter Smith sees incremental improvement occurring with early voting over the next several years.
“Clearly, it doesn’t compare to the presidential, the highest turnout, but it’s not a bad turnout this year,” Smith said. “We’re not 40%-plus [town voter participation] on any of the turnouts.”
Yet the largest turnout on a single day so far this week came Tuesday, with 540 votes cast. That’s not bad, Smith said. The day’s heavy rainstorm and high winds will probably killed early voter turnout on Thursday, he said.
Early voter turnout seems to draw far more Democrats than Republicans. According to the Secretary of the State’s count, 58,491 voters were Democrats compared to the GOP’s 25,258 voters. Unaffiliated voters totaled 32,461, with 1,445 listed as “other.”
In the absentee columns, 8,827 Democrats had voted as of Wednesday compared to 3,766 Republicans, with 4,505 unaffiliated and 190 “others.” The early voters who registered the same day totaled 943.
Early voting work is somewhat of a grind, the clerks said. An election that took one mammoth day is now broken into 14 days with disproportionate stress as more votes generally come in as Election Day creeps closer.
“Like with any election, the challenge is to make sure that people get the chance to vote,” Smith said. “We’ve had some concerns with ballots not getting to people. It’s taken a couple days for some of these to arrive through the mail. I have some people who have been waiting over a week, 10 days to receive their ballot after we mailed it, which is frustrating.”
“At least in my opinion, 14 days makes a lot of sense for the presidential election. On a municipal, you could probably do it in seven but that’s really up to the General Assembly to change that,” Smith added.
Election Day probably can’t come fast enough for Santino.
“The hardest thing for our office is that between the deputies and the registrars at our office, we’re almost here full-time every day for the last few weeks trying to get this thing up and running,” Santino said. “We’re all looking forward to a very nice, quiet Thanksgiving dinner and inauguration at that weekend. And our vacations start in December.”
Stonington and Groton
As of Thursday in Stonington, 1,033 residents had cast early ballots out of 14,464 registered voters — or about 8%. Some 140 absentee ballots were returned.
In what is the first time for early voting in municipal elections, voter registrars are seeing healthy numbers of early voters. Early voting started Oct. 20 and runs through Nov. 2.
“We’re pleased with the turnout, and we’ve seen a steady stream,” Stonington registrar Peggy Roberts said. While the first week of early voting, especially the weekend, was slow, Roberts said the pace picked up over the past week averaging “well over 100 a day.”
Many early voters have been older adults and “it made an impact there especially for seniors who need a little more time and access. It’s really worked out great,” she said.
Roberts said early voting appears to have taken up voters who would typically vote absentee ballot, but to date it hasn’t been significant, with some 100 absentee ballots returned.
In Groton, as of Friday morning, there were some 1,056 early votes with an additional 17 same-day registrations and voting, said Kristen Venditti, Groton’s registrar of voters. Some 293 absentee ballots have been returned.
“We have had a pretty steady turnout during the week. Weekends have been a lot less,” Venditti said. Registrars in Stonington and Groton said the early voting period in its current form is longer than needed.
“We feel this is a pretty normal lower turnout for this type of election. The voters seem to really like early voting, but we think there should be less days that we are open and less hours due to the turn out for this type of election,” Venditti said.
Amy Wu contributed to this report.