While municipal elections routinely see a far lower voter turnout than others like a presidential year, early voting numbers show even fewer voters than expected, leading some registrars around Connecticut to question whether 14 days of early voting is necessary.
As of Friday, early voting accounts for 15.5% of what the state Secretary of the State’s office expects for the overall turnout.
However, the largest numbers of early votes cast during last year’s presidential election came on the weekend before Election Day, Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas said.
If that trend continues, early voting in this year’s Nov. 4 municipal election could account for as much as 31% of the expected overall turnout.
“It feels quiet,” Thomas said on Thursday, adding it’s difficult to say whether numbers will pick up.
As of Friday morning, Stratford was leading all municipalities in the state with 3,856 early votes, followed by Milford at 3,554.
Republican Registrar of Voters in Milford Debra Fellenbaum said there’s usually about a 40% turnout for municipal elections, and she was expecting to get about half of that during the 14-day early voting period, but is only seeing about 8%.
“I find it a little disappointing for the long days we’re putting in and the people we hired,” she said.
Registrars in Milford anticipated 500 people per day, but have only seen that number once in the past two weeks, with the most being 525 and the least being 132.
“You have all these poll workers sitting around,” Fellenbaum said. “We were sending people home in the middle of the day because we can’t pay them just to sit there with no voters coming in.”
Despite the low turnout and excessive work, Milford’s Democratic Registrar Kerri Rowland said that offering more opportunities to vote is the priority.
“I still believe that early voting is largely popular and hugely successful because voters want it” regardless of the cost, she said. “I don’t think you can put a price on democracy.”
Hamden is also among the municipalities with the most early votes cast as of Friday morning with 3,015.
Anthony Esposito, the deputy Republican registrar there, argues early voting doesn’t improve turnout, it simply spaces out when people choose to vote.
“Most registrars are in agreement,” he said. “We don’t need two weeks. Five days would be sufficient.”
Several registrars raised the issue of having poll workers work all weekend leading up to Election Day, taking away time that they would normally prepare for their biggest day of the year.
“People who pass the legislation obviously have not worked in a poll on Election Day or see what the registrars have to go through to do this,” Esposito said. “It may have sounded like a good idea in theory. In practice it’s not reasonable.”
Jean Rabinow, the Democratic registrar in Trumbull, agrees.
“For a non-presidential year, frankly, I would like to see the legislature shorten the early voting period,” she said.
Many registrars said that they feel two weeks of early voting in municipal elections is too long, but some are also wary of having different rules for different elections, fearing that could confuse voters.
Thomas had recommended 10 days of early voting prior to the legislature adopting 14 in 2023. Proposals to shorten the length failed in the legislature earlier this year.
She said it’s too soon to say what she will recommend for an adjustment this year, adding that the state is giving municipalities $2 million this year, far less than they are expected to spend.
With two elections with early voting data, lawmakers and Thomas now have more information to base future decisions on.
“Everyone was understandably worried about making significant changes absent data,” Thomas said. “So now that we have last year representing our highest turnout and this year representing our lowest, I think we will have enough data.”
When it comes to the cost to municipalities to conduct early voting, the Secretary of the State’s office believes the legislature should fully fund it, Thomas spokesman Roger Senserrich said.
“At the same time, we also believe that legislators should consider either a shorter early voting period for some elections or fewer operating hours,” he said. “After this election, we will have data for a very high turnout and a low turnout election, and we can share it with the legislature to consider this further.”
Polls have been largely uneventful in terms of setbacks, Senserrich said.
The only noteworthy incident was in Killingworth, where a car crash happened in front of Town Hall, closing the road for 90 minutes and knocking out power and internet access, he said.
The internet issue was fixed on Thursday, and Killingworth is back on track, Senserrich said.
As of Friday, there have been a total of more than 134,000 early votes cast more than 17,000 absentee ballots returned, with Democrats far outpacing Republicans in both.
This article originally published at ‘We don’t need two weeks’: Low early voting turnout has CT officials questioning 14-day period.
