HARTFORD, Conn — Connecticut's legislative leaders representing the Democrat party asked in a letter to the state's Secretary of the State on Friday to take measures in preparing local registrars of voters for Election Day 2024. The registrars will likely be required to count scores of ballots from the state's early voting period, and lawmakers say they want to ensure they are not overwhelmed on Election Day and beyond.
Since Monday, around 198,000 Connecticut residents have cast an early ballot, according to the legislators, with around 68,000 people voting absentee this year.
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff signed the letter sent to Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas, which addresses the "enormous success" with early voting, which could become overwhelming for local registrar of voters to count the early voting ballots on Election Day in addition to the typical Election Day tasks.
The Democrat leaders are looking for Thomas to provide a plan that the Secretary of the State's office can execute to "offer any and all assistance and guidance to local registrar of voters in the quick and accurate tallying of early votes."
“I certainly won't lie. It's daunting…" said Orey Frate, who is the deputy registrar of voters for the Town of Darien. "I have every confidence. Towns and registrars can always use more resources support, that's the nature of it, but we are keeping an eye on these ballot numbers and doing some mental math based on the past experiences of our counters and our expectations of how quickly we can process on Election Day."
With a week and a half of early voting to go and the possibility that early voting will remain popular, Democrats expressed concern that local registrars of voters will be "inundated" with opening and counting thousands of early voting ballots on Election Day, which is Tuesday, Nov. 5.
"We believe it is critical that Connecticut implement whatever measures are necessary to ensure that our newly expanded early voting right remains as popular and as effective as we envisioned," the letter reads.
There were around 1.8 million Connecticut residents who voted in the 2020 presidential election, according to the letter. Using that number as a baseline, Democrats project that nearly 15% of likely Connecticut voters have already voted so far in the 2024 election.
"We will stay as long as it needs," Frate told FOX61. "We will recruit as much manpower as we need and train as many poll workers as we need to ensure that the election is counted in a timely, orderly and legal manner.”
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