The first day of early voting in Connecticut drew 56,000 voters to the polls Monday, about 2.5% of all eligible voters, Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas said Tuesday.
“After all the hard work put in by our election workers to prepare for yesterday and the next 13 days, I am glad to see voters taking advantage of this convenient form of in-person voting,” Thomas said.
The strong turnout appeared to be continuing Tuesday.
“There has been no diminishment,” said Fred DeCaro III, the Republican registrar of voters in Greenwich. “I have not seen us with a line of less than 20 people.”
At 4 p.m., he said Greenwich was on pace for a turnout of 720 voters, the same as the first day.
In West Hartford, where about 100 voters were on line Monday when early voting began at 10 a.m., about three dozen waited at the same time Tuesday. By 2:30 p.m., there was a minimal line but a steady stream of voters.
“We’ve been rockin’ all day,” said a man who was busy checking in voters.
Giselle “Gigi” Feliciano, the Democratic registrar in Hartford, said 388 voted Monday in Hartford, including 16 who used the state’s same-day registration to first register to vote.
“In Hartford, a lot of people are using it,” she said. “We were quite surprised.”
As was the case in neighboring West Hartford, the line was short, but the number of voters arriving was steady.
DeCaro, who has been a registrar in Greenwich for 16 years, said researchers have found that “a novelty effect” generates interest when early voting begins. It will take time to establish how significant early voting remains.
“It’s going to take a few years to get the data. One year is not going to be sufficient to see,” DeCaro said. “But as a student of this, it’s going to be interesting to watch the process.”
Connecticut was the 47th state to adopt early voting, which runs through Nov. 3. Early polling hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., except for 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Oct. 29 and 31.
Gov. Ned Lamont was among those surprised by the first-day turnout and lines. He left the town hall without voting, rather than waiting.
“People care about this election. People turned out. It was a long wait,” Lamont said Tuesday. “I had some other things I had to do, so I’ll be getting down and voting early again sometime, probably next week.”
Every community has at least one early voting polling place, mostly in city or town halls. To find your early voting place, look here.