But Connecticut’s Top Voting Official Calls It A Success Nonetheless
by Jamil Ragland and Hudson Kamphausen CTNewsJunkie
Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas declared Connecticut’s first experience with early in-person voting a success, despite low turnout for the noncompetitive presidential primary contest.
“Early voting is a historic first for Connecticut. We had pretty low turnout in general, but I thought it was a resounding success,” she said at a press conference at the state capitol. “We had over 17,000 people come out in early voting across the state.”
Early in-person voting was approved by the state legislature last session, and the system was implemented for the first time for the presidential preference primary election. Early voting began on March 26, and ran through March 30, with no voting on March 29 for the Good Friday holiday.
Presidential preference primaries typically have lower turnout than other elections, partially due to their status as “closed” elections, where voters must be part of a party to vote in the primary. In a state where unaffiliated voters outnumber registered Democrats and Republicans, the voter pool is smaller than other elections to begin with. And the forgone conclusion of President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump being the nominees for the Democratic and Republican parties is also credited with dampening turnout.
Asked if she was disappointed by the low turnout to test the new early in-person voting system, Thomas expressed some frustration.
“I was out traveling this morning talking to towns, and most people felt it wasn’t an adequate test [of the early voting system],” she said. “There’s probably a few towns at the lower end who had under 50 people turnout. I wish more people would show up to vote in every single election.”
Still, early in-person voting worked for the voters who turned out to take advantage of it, and Thomas was upbeat about the system’s readiness for the presidential election later this year.
“The presidential election is typically the highest turnout election in Connecticut, so I think we’ll have a very good barometer after November,” she said. “If we don’t see a lot of turnout, I think that tells us something, because that’s the highest turnout election typically.”
At The Polls
The polling place inside Manchester High School’s gymnasium where election workers said turnout was moderate for the Presidential Primary on Tuesday, April 2, 2024. Credit: Hudson Kamphausen / CTNewsJunkie
The primary also gives voters a chance to voice their feelings and opinions.
At Manchester High School, about 40 voters had turned out to vote by 11 a.m., with some of them saying they were disappointed at the low turnout. But they said they understood that the top two candidates running for the White House is nearly locked.
Anthony Smith, 67, said he is a registered Republican and was supporting former president Donald Trump because of the lack of attention he said he thinks is being paid to issues that concern him.
“What you have in Washington [D.C.] is total incompetence,” Smith said.
Heating oil prices, groceries, and individuals coming into the country with diseases are all reasons why Smith said is not a fan of the Biden administration.
“We’re gonna be a third-world country before you know it,” he said.
While some voters think that the Biden administration is not doing enough regarding the economy, others said that they couldn’t support Trump because of his personality and past.
Nehimiah Blake, 76, said he favored the current president because of his lack of divisive rhetoric and behavior.
“We need to get along more in this world,” Blake said. “We can’t have someone who divides us.”
He said he views Biden as being “conscious” of the border situation. Blake added that if Trump were “more humanitarian,” then maybe he would have considered supporting him.
“Right now, I’m standing for democracy,” he said.
That sentiment was shared by others who voted Tuesday.
A voter who declined to be identified other than as “Shell,” age 77, said that she had been a registered Republican “most of her life” until Trump was brought into the party as a candidate.
Shell said she didn’t like the former president’s comments about women, nor his selling of branded Bibles for $60.
“You can either vote for democracy, or you can vote for hypocrisy,” she said.
Cecilio Garcia, a 59-year-old bus driver, said that he thought Trump “did a good job” during his first term, and that prices for everyday items are too high now.
No voters who were interviewed mentioned writing in another candidate or voting non-committed to President Joe Biden.
Mansfield voters
In Mansfield, there seemed to be more consensus about who the right pick would be to have in the White House.
In a town with a population of about 26,000, roughly 70 people had shown up at the polling location at the Mansfield Community Center by 3:30 p.m.
Teresa Mamunes, a 69-year-old English-language teacher for 30 years at nearby E.O. Smith High School, said that she was previously a registered Republican. While she said she didn’t change her party affiliation because of Trump, she said she can’t look past misinformation regarding the 2020 Presidential election.
“He lied to the American public,” she said, adding that Biden is the “only legitimate candidate … In the end, nobody will put up with his [Trump’s] nonsense.”
Those ideas were shared by another couple of voters.
Ron and Nancy Rohner, 88 and 85, said that President Joe Biden isn’t the best choice, but that he’s “better than the alternative.”
Former President Donald Trump, Ron Rohner said, represents “everything that is destructive.” Nancy Rohner said that the former president has a “lack of respect for basic American values.”
Her husband added, “He doesn’t stand for what we want to be as a country.”
Multiple voters declined to comment.