CONNECTICUT, USA — Election 2024 is the first general election in which Connecticut residents can cast early votes after a bill passed in 2023. The Secretary of State's (SOTS) office released the total number of early votes cast before Tuesday's election.
Between Oct. 21 and Nov. 3, SOTS reported 741,501 early votes were cast. The first full week of early voting drew in more than 300,000 voters.
On the first day of the general election, early voting saw 58,976 voters, with the highest voting day taking place on Monday, Oct. 29, with 71,225 votes.
Connecticut was the 47th state in the country to pass some measure of early voting. Alabama, Mississippi, and New Hampshire remain the only states that do not allow it.
With all of the early votes, and not being allowed to count them until Nov. 5, there were some concerns that election workers would be oversaturated with how many early voting ballots they'd need to count alongside day-of votes.
On Oct. 25, Connecticut Senate Democratic leadership sent a letter to SOTS saying in part, "Local registrars of voters will be inundated with opening and county early ballots on Election day."
They asked SOTS to be "prepared to offer any and all assistance and guidance" to local registrars to ensure quick and accurate vote tallying.
Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas reassured the leadership that her office was supporting towns and that this kind of workload is not unfamiliar to many.
"We have been checking regularly with every town, and most of them are in good shape," Thomas said. "I understand lawmakers are concerned, but the great news is election workers have actually been thinking about this for more than a year. So, most towns have planned their count around the number of people who voted by absentee in 2020. Those numbers were very close to 700,000, so we have good leeway there."
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Jennifer Glatz is a digital content producer at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jglatz@fox61.com.
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