Photo Courtesy of CNN
On Saturday, November 7, major news outlets declared Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, the president-elect and vice-president-elect after a historical election that kept the nation on edge for days.
In Connecticut, this election brought unprecedented polling numbers with an increased voter turnout of nearly 80% compared to 74% in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Though the state has voted overwhelmingly democratic since the 1988 U.S. presidential election, this year’s election has been particularly polarizing. The past four years under the Trump administration have increased the concerns of Democrats and Republicans alike regarding President Donald Trump’s P’00 position on several social issues such as health care, immigration, and women’s rights.
“People were eager and passionate about casting their votes,” said Hartford Mayor Mr. Luke Bronin, who is a Democrat. “We’ve had a president that has divided us on every line possible.”
Due to rising tensions around the nation, many Connecticut voters avoided in-person voting, fearing violent disruptions at polling stations, and the coronavirus. An act passed by the Connecticut General Assembly in July allowed all voters to request absentee ballots, resulting in nearly 600,000 registered absentee ballots.
The state reported no major issues throughout the election process though there were a few power outages at polling stations caused by high winds and a mishap for some voters in New London who had received the wrong ballots for House candidates.
Shortly after polls closed at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday night, the Associated Press called the race in Connecticut for Mr. Biden — though the counting of absentee ballots continued through Wednesday.
Results for the House of Representatives were also called the following day, with the Democratic Party candidates, each an incumbent, winning in all five districts. In District Three, which includes Wallingford, Democratic U.S. Representative Ms. Rosa DeLauro was reelected for her 16th term after facing Republican challenger Ms. Maragret Streiker, ultimately receiving 57.3% of the vote in comparison to Ms. Streiker’s 41.3%.
In the town of Wallingford, the elections kept officials busy with work even months before Election Day, largely due to the increased number of absentee ballots. Twenty-two people, including the moderator, worked on processing the absentee votes.
According to Wallingford Town Clerk Ms. Barbara Thompson, Wallingford officials started crossing voters off of an official list on October 26 and worked through November 4.
When an absentee ballot is officially registered, the voter’s name is marked with a red “A” next to their name on the list. “The red ‘A’ is next to the name so if the person was to try and go to the polls, they could not vote,” Ms. Thompson said. “It was a very tedious process, but it works, because there’s a lot of eyes on the ballots and a lot of double checking, so we were very successful.”
Ms. Thompson’s office was specifically in charge of sending absentee ballots to registered voters and scanning the completed ballots to produce reports for the state.
“We issued over 9,000 absentee ballots and received back 8,100 prior to election day. Between November 2 and 3, we received back around another thousand ballots to get to the total of 9,086 absentee ballots.”
The Wallingford Town Clerk’s office finished counting absentee ballots on Wednesday and submitted its report to the Connecticut Secretary of State’s office on Thursday.
When asked if any unexpected difficulties arose during the elaborate election procedures, Ms. Thompson said, “It was really the sheer number and volume that was hard to deal with. We had to close our office at noon to the public starting around September 20 and just do election work.”
In regards to the state’s role during this entire process, Press Secretary at the Office of Secretary of State Ms. Gina Atanasoff said, “The election is administered at a local level by the election officials of each town. The Office of the Secretary of the State is responsible for overseeing the towns’ functions and maintaining contact with them as well as the State Election Enforcement Commission (SEEC) in the case of any legal questions or issues.”
Despite the increase in absentee ballots, an estimated 75% of voters opted for in-person voting, crowding Connecticut’s polling stations as early as 6:00 a.m.
English teacher Mr. David Loeb, who voted in person at Moses Y. Beach Elementary School, said, “So many people had reasons to vote by mail or absentee this year, but I felt safe enough and knew that there wouldn’t be a mess about my voting in-person, and there might have been with the ballots.”
Choate students who were eligible to vote in Connecticut were given exceptions to campus Covid-19 guidelines and permitted to leave campus to vote in person.
Overall, Wallingford had an 87% voter turnout, with over 13,000 votes for Biden, closely followed by almost 12,000 votes for Trump.
All 151 seats in the Connecticut House of Representatives and 36 seats in the Connecticut Senate were also up for election on November 3.
For the 34th Senate District elections, the majority of votes from Wallingford citizens went to Republican candidate Mr. Paul Cicarella. Mr. Cicarella will be serving his first term, following in the footsteps of Senator Mr. Len Fasano, who announced that he would not be seeking re-election earlier this year.
Wallingford citizens voted in Republican candidate Mr. Vincent J. Candelora for the 86th House District, Democratic candidate Ms. Mary Mushinsky for the 85th, Democratic candidate Mr. Jim Jinks for the 90th, and Democratic candidate Ms. Liz Linehan for the 103rd.
