TOP STORY: Election Day Turnout Steady in Lyme, Old Lyme as Poll Workers Roll Out New Voting Tabulators

LYME-OLD LYME–Voting officials in Lyme and Old Lyme on Election Day reported happy voters despite a glitch with one of the new tabulators in Lyme.

Lyme Registrars of Voters Dottie Wells, D, and Judith Davies, R, said there didn’t seem to be any problems with the Election Day tabulator in a previous test run or during the first hour of Election Day. But the machine around 7:20 a.m. spit back a ballot inserted face down by a voter, which was unusual because the machines are supposed to accept ballots inserted in any direction.

The problem ultimately affected four voters, though they were able to successfully cast their votes by inserting the ballots face up.

Officials tried to address the problem locally before calling in the tabulator’s vendor, Election Systems and Software (ES&S). A representative stationed in the area arrived at the Town Hall by 8 a.m., Wells said. Officials by midday did not know the cause of the problem, but were instructing all voters to insert their ballots face up as a workaround.

There are separate tabulators for early voting, absentee, same day and Election Day ballots. There is also a backup tabulator, Wells said.

The tabulator is one of about 2,500 new tabulators that replaced old scanners across the state this year as part of a $20 million package, according to reporting from CT News Junkie.

Wells said the first voter to experience the problem was understanding about having to wait for the poll workers to figure out what was going on.

“The voter was patient, and our staff was patient,” she said.

Wells and Davies described Election Day turnout as steady.

“People are happy to be here and doing their civic duty,” Wells said.

She said poll workers added two privacy booths to the six booths originally set up in the Town Hall meeting room in order to meet the demand.

Combined with early voting totals, turnout by 1:20 p.m. was at roughly 47% of total registered voters.

Lyme Registrar of Voters Judith Davies and Dottie Wells said early voting brought in 531 ballots from 253 Democrats, 165 unaffiliated voters, 103 Republicans and 9 minor party voters. While a breakdown of the affiliations of all registered voters wasn’t immediately available on Tuesday, data from Thomas’ office as of Oct. 17 shows there were 734 unaffiliated voters, 717 Democrats, 444 Republicans and 31 minor party voters, for a total of 1,926 voters.

Wells said 31 absentee ballots had been received as of Monday.

Over at Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School, Old Lyme Head Moderator Fred Verillo came back from guiding a resident with a disability through the process of using the town’s accessible voting system – which allowed the voter to listen to an audio version of the ballot while using a touchscreen – to describe “a robust turnout” at the polls. By 2 p.m., he said 1,040 voters had filed through the town’s one polling place.

“I’m happy because our voters are happy,” he said.

He said the new tabulators were running efficiently with no problems. He predicted they would make the overall tabulation process go more quickly and quietly.

The machines use paper ballots and are not connected to the internet, according to CT News Junkie.

“It’s so much better,” Verillo said. “I think we’re serving our community very well.”

Early voting brought in 1,553 ballots and absentee voters accounted for 155 ballots, according to Deputy Registrar of Voters Katherine Thuma.

Thuma around midday said the total number of registrations in town, including two same-day registrations filed on Tuesday, amounted to 2,546 unaffiliated voters, 1,963 Democrats, 1,644 Republicans and 97 minor party voters.

Between the start of early voting and 2 p.m. Tuesday, about 28% of those registered voters had come out to vote.