Polls Are Open, Residents Voting

As of 1 p.m., voter turnout remained relatively low at 11.6 percent, said Carole Young-Kleinfeld, Wilton's Democrat Registrar of Voters.

At noon only 708 voters out of 7,211 eligible voters (9.8 percent) had cast a ballot in the state's first primary in 40 years, she said. Compare that to the almost 40 percent that turned out last fall to vote for the liquor store ordinance and in the Board of Finance election.

"There was a little bump this morning as people headed to work and there will be another one between 4:30 and 6:30 when people arrive home from work and stop off to vote," Young-Kleinfeld said. "I'm hopeful."

The optical scanners used at all three districts record votes cast, but not party affiliation. So there was no way to tell at the time how many voting were Democrats and how many were Republicans. Wilton was one of 25 Connecticut towns to pilot the scanners during the 2006 state election, Young-Kleinfeld said.

According to Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz only a little more than 1 million voters can vote. There are 412,155 registered Republicans and 742,980 registered Democrats in Connecticut. However, there are nearly 2 million registered voters in the state. That means 832,725 unaffiliated voters are locked out of the booth as are the 11,798 voters signed up with minor parties.

In Wilton, there are 2,989 registered Democrats and 4,222 registered Republicans eligible to vote in Tuesday's primary.

"Today has been busier than the last August primary," Young-Kleinfeld said, noting that the town's registrars arrived a 5 a.m. to the office on Thursday morning. But she added that the last August primary had only one race, pitting eventual Rep. Jim Himes against Lee Whitnum.

This year, by comparison, ther are several primary battles, which are all available for viewing here.

Young-Kleinfeld said that she expected Wilton's three polling stations, at Wilton High School, Middlebrook and Driscoll to close promptly at 8 p.m. At that point, each station will run any ballots deposited in the auxiliary bins through the optical scanners, and will tally any ballots that need to be hand-counted, and then run the final numbers at each polling station machine.

These tallies, along with the machines, will then be returned to Town Hall where the town's three head moderators will add all the votes together. Absentee ballots will also be counted at Town Hall.

Young-Kleinfeld said the registrars expect to have the results sometime around 9 p.m., though she said this was only a rough estimate.

Tina Gardner, the town's current Republican Registrar of Voters, is allowed to work during the primary by state law. However, since Gardner is running for reelection, she "made a personal decision to ask her dupty registrar, Joan Starr, to step in in her place," according to Young-Kleinfeld.