Two Hartford polling locations will remain open for half an hour.
Gov. Dannel Malloy’s campaign filed a complaint in Hartford Superior Court, asking that voting hours be extended for an hour in Hartford because of delays and other problems at polling locations in the city this morning and the hearing is underway.
The Malloy campaign is asking for polls to remain open until 9 p.m. rather than 8 p.m., but the judge decided polls will remain open until 8:30 p.m. at the L.W. Batchelder Elementary and United Methodist Church, at 571 Farmington Ave.
Malloy campaign officials said they filed for the extension to accommodate voters who could not to vote or were discouraged from voting this morning, the campaign said.
“Currently the polls in Hartford are working smoothly and voters can cast their ballots. We encourage everyone to vote,” the statement says.
A statement from Zak Sanders, the communications director of the state Republican Party, said the issues were resolved and there is plenty of time to vote today without an extension.
"We understand that any issues at Hartford polling locations were resolved by 7:00am this morning. There's still plenty of time left today to get to the polls and we encourage anyone who hasn't already done so to get out and vote before 8:00pm.," Sanders said.
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State Republican Party chairman Jerry Labriola said earlier in the day that the party's legal team was reviewing the situation and added that they would "have a high level of concern" if Democrats seek to keep the polls open later.
"It's always the Democrats. It's always the cities. This is right out of the Democratic playbook on how they conduct elections," he said. "It would give the Democrats more opportunity for mischief. We certainly do not want a repeat of the fiasco in Bridgeport in 2010."
In 2010, there were voting problems in Bridgeport and days of recounts before Foley conceded to Malloy.
Prior to that election, Bridgeport city elections officials ordered only 21,000 ballots for a city with 69,000 registered voters and several precincts ran out of ballots. As lines grew in the Democratic stronghold, some voters gave up and left.
"Given this is the voting district of Dan Malloy and Denise Merrill, if there was ever a reason to clean house certainly this is one," Labriola said.
The full statement from the Malloy campaign:
Because of delays and other problems at Hartford polling locations, we are filing a complaint in Hartford Superior Court asking that voting hours be extended to accommodate voters who were unable to vote or were discouraged from voting this morning. Currently the polls in Hartford are working smoothly and voters can cast their ballots. We encourage everyone to vote.
