Drink Up! Voter Turnout In Dry Town Bridgewater 77 Percent, Turnout In Bridgeport 11.6 Percent

For pure voter futility Hartford led the state for lowest turnout in last week’s general election, five percent. Bridgeport was third to last at 11.61 percent. Hey, let’s round it off and make it a whopping 12 percent. Kudos to folks who voted. Coal in stockings to those who don’t. Don’t vote? Don’t vent. One of the great things about OIB, in addition to lots of smart readers (except the host), our people vote.

The statewide voter turnout among registered voters in Connecticut was 31.43 percent, according to Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, led by Bridgewater where 77.39 percent of registered voters cast ballots. Bridgewater, the Litchfield County hamlet, is the last dry town in Connecticut. They don’t drink much in Bridgewater but they certainly vote often.

The municipality with the lowest voter turnout was Hartford, where only 5.21 percent of registered voters cast ballots, according to Merrill.

“Municipal elections usually have lower turnout figures than state or Presidential elections, even though the impact of the decisions made by those elected to local government is huge in the community,” says Merrill, Connecticut’s chief elections official. “Many races were decided by just a handful of votes, and we had a number of recounts as a result, which shows once again how important it is to do your civic duty and cast a ballot. I also want to praise our local election officials for accommodating all of the new voters in Connecticut who used their new right to register and vote on Election Day. From everything we are hearing Election Day registration went very smoothly in 2013, and we look forward to even more voters being welcomed into the democratic process next year.”