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September 18, 2023

Low turnout in municipal primaries, again

By José Luis Martínez, CT Mirror

Earlier this week, almost 43,800 CT voters headed to their polling stations to vote in their towns’ primaries, according to unofficial results from the Connecticut Secretary of the State. But about 203,300 were eligible, putting this year’s primary turnout rate at 21.54%.

 

The highest turnout rate was in the North Canaan Republican primary for selectman at 58%, with 409 people casting ballots out of 700 eligible voters. The town had the second-smallest number of eligible voters of all towns that had a primary this year.

But Norwalk, the eleventh-largest town by its number of eligible voters out of all towns having primaries, saw the lowest turnout rate, at 4.9%. Just 182 out of 3,742 voters showed up to the polls to choose councilmen for their town.

The capital city of Hartford had only a 14% showing, compared to about 25% the last time it had a primary, in 2019. New Haven also had a lower turnout at 23.69% compared to almost 33% in 2019. Bridgeport saw an increase of about 3 percentage points, reaching almost 26% turnout rate this week.

Last year's general election had a turnout rate of about 58%, and the presidential election of 2020 had a turnout rate of 80%.

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