Peer Pressure – You Know You Wanna Vote


If you don’t vote Tuesday, you’ll not only be missing you ability to take part in an historic election, but you’ll also miss out on the office chatter about how things went at the polls.

State officials are predicting as many as 90 percent of state voters will vote Tuesday.

More than 300,000 people have registered since Jan. 1, pushing CT's voter lists to the highest in state history, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said.

What remains to be seen is how the process of actually voting goes Tuesday.

Bysiewicz said she expects there will be enough staff to handle the legions of voters because the state is using optical scan voting machines this year instead of the old lever machines.

Some polling places will have dozens of booths where people can fill out ballots before slipping them into an optical scan device to be counted.

An additional 250 poll workers, students trained at six state colleges, are also being deployed to help. Hartford and Bridgeport will get 100 each, and the remaining 50 will be scattered at polls throughout the state.

"I don't think we're going to have huge lines," Bysiewicz said.

Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Bysiewicz encouraged people to vote during off-peak hours, from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. She also has advised registrars to redeploy their workers to check-in tables.

People who are not registered to vote will still be allowed to cast a ballot in the presidential race.  Special ballots will be available at town and city clerks' offices on Election Day for state residents who are U.S. citizens, 18 and older, and can show proof of residency in their city or town.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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