Early voting starts Monday, Oct. 21. Teresa Begnal, the Democratic Registrar from Waterbury, walks us through the process of how it will work: from finding your polling place to the counting ballots.
Mike Hydeck: After decades of debate, we are now in the very first presidential election season where early voting is an option. In Connecticut, we are one of the last states in the country to offer this. The two week period of early voting begins on Monday. So how does all of this work? Joining me now is the Democratic Registrar of Voters in Waterbury, Theresa Begnal. Ms. Begnal, thanks so much for joining us. You're part of the Fifth District, one of the most hotly contested races for Congress in the country. What kind of interest have you seen in Waterbury when it comes to the possibility of early voting this time around?
Teresa Begnal: Well, I think that lately there's been a real interest in it. People are talking about it. They're calling our office constantly asking where it is, what time it is. We did send postcards out to everybody so they are aware of where it will be and the time. But people are really calling in quite a bit.
Mike Hydeck: So for your area, are you going to vote in the same exact regular polling places that you do on Election Day? Or will be there different locations?
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Teresa Begnal: So early voting is going to be held at City Hall, which is 235 Grand Street, on the second floor. It's going to be free parking downtown for those two weeks, so anybody that comes to vote, they don't have to worry about the meter or anything, but we just have the one location.
Mike Hydeck: So this can be very advantageous for many different reasons, whether you're elderly and it takes a while to find a ride. Whether you're like me and I have a college student who's out of state, but he comes home on the weekend, so he can vote on the weekend. Over the years, though, for many years now, early voting has been debated in Connecticut, and one of the concerns for local registrars was being able to staff the polls for 14 straight days before the election. Has that been a concern for you? And how have you solved it, if it has?
Teresa Begnal: So we're in pretty good shape with that. We have about 20 poll workers that we trained that we're going to rotate on a rotating basis over the 14 days. We also have five people in our office. We're actually lucky. We have five full time employees. Two registrars, two deputies and a secretary. So they're going to be available to go over there, too. The best thing about it is it's right across the street from our office, so if we have to get there, we're two minutes away.
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Mike Hydeck: You have a great setup. All right, so when we come into early vote. Say, I'm going to take my son and we're going to go and early vote at the location that has been designed for you at City Hall. What happens to the ballot after we make our choices? Does it get locked up in a safe? Does it get counted right away? What does the physical ballot do after we submit it?
Teresa Begnal: So you're going to receive your ballot, you're going to also get an envelope. So you're going to fill out your ballot, you're going to put it into an envelope, you're going to seal it, and then it's going to be in a sealed container that, oh, we're going to empty at the end of the night. After we empty it and sort them out, we're going to lock them in a we call it, it's a ballot bag, and it's sealed. And then it's going to be transferred to the Town Clerk's Office. It's going to be under lock and key, and, like I said, everything is sealed, so it's very secure.
Mike Hydeck: So we're starting to hear in other states, like Georgia is among them, they set records for people who came out in early voted. Are we going to hear how many people have early voted each day to kind of understand if it's popular or not? And are the early votes actually tabulated at the same time as all the other ballots on Election Day?
Teresa Begnal: Yeah. So they're going to be counted in the central location that's going to be also with the absentee ballots, any Election Day registration, which is now called same day registration, and yeah. So it's all going to be done in one central location, also in City Hall.
Mike Hydeck: And will you, so say it goes for two week. So after the end of week one, will we hear 20,000 people came into early vote? Will you have those numbers available along the way, or?
Teresa Begnal: We'll have them daily. At the end of the night, we print out a report just so that it matches the ballots that we are taking out of the box. We're going to count them to make sure they match for the day. So daily reports are available.
Mike Hydeck: So now, with national media reports, we all see how quickly or how slowly states tabulate the results, and Connecticut is continually one of the slower states. Will we have any timeline change regarding the results because of early voting? Like, will it extend the time it takes to actually get the votes counted? Or do you think it will be the same?
Teresa Begnal: I think it will be about the same, because we'll be counting those all day long, and then we'll just have to run the tabulator at the end of the night, at eight o'clock, just to print out the tapes. But that will already be completed, so all we'll have to do is print out the tapes. In Connecticut, our problem is, it's called our EMS system. It's being upgraded, so hopefully that will help. But in Waterbury, we have 5,000 entries that have to be put into this EMS program at the end of an Election Night. And also we we cross reference it with with another system. So that's what takes so long, is how many entries have to actually be put into this system just to get the final result.
Mike Hydeck: Well, that final result, confidence in the accuracy, is what we all care about. Teresa Begnal, Waterbury, Democratic Registrar of Voters, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.