New voter registrations have surged since 2016

Increase seen in every local town, for both parties and unaffiliated

In every city and town in southeastern Connecticut, the number of new voter registrations from the day after the 2016 presidential election until now is higher than new registrations during the previous fouryear period, and that’s true for new Democratic, Republican and unaffiliated registrations.

The Connecticut Secretary of the State’s Office on Monday provided data on new voter registrations for

Nov. 9, 2016, to Oct. 26, 2020, and Nov. 7, 2012, to Oct. 26, 2016.

The data was broken down into three age groups, municipality and affiliation.

The percentage of increase in new registrations over the previous presidential election cycle varied from a high of 141% in Norwich to a low of 59% in North Stonington. Norwich and North Stonington also had the highest and lowest respective percentage increase in registrations among voters ages 18 to 24.

Groton saw the highest overall new registrations between 2016 and 2020, at 7,568.

Norwich was the only municipality where registrations more than doubled in each of the three age groups, 18-24, 25-64, and 65+.

The data from the state show that Norwich saw 7,509 new voter registrations from 2016 until Monday, and the Norwich registrar of voters office said Wednesday it had 1,768 new registrations just since Sept. 1

“We are poised to see the largest number of voters participating in a Connecticut election ever, despite the 2020 election being held under the most challenging circumstances in a century. I hope to see every registered voter participating on Tuesday.”

SECRETARY OF THE STATE DENISE MERRILL

IN A NEWS RELEASE

of this year.

“From what I see, there’s a whole lot more younger people registering than previously,” Republican Registrar Dianne Slopak said. She also said Norwich is seeing registrations by people born in the 1960s and ’70s who have never voted before.

Similarly, East Lyme Republican Registrar Mary Smith said it’s “amazing the people, say, that are middle-aged that have never voted” but are registering. She added that when she sees someone was born in 1960, she expects to see they have a previous voting history, but some don’t.

Democratic Registrar Wendi Sims said she noticed an uptick in younger registrations at the beginning of June. That’s when many local Black Lives Matter rallies and marches were starting, and many of those events included voter registration tables.

Nationwide, a Democratic data firm called TargetSmart found that more than 520,000 Democrats registered to vote in the first half of June, a 50% increase over the previous month’s total, The New York Times reported.

As of Thursday, Sims said East Lyme had 13,677 registered voters, and since Oct. 5, unaffiliated registrations increased by 168, Democratic ones by 74 and Republican ones by 68.

Across towns and age groups, it’s usually the case that the most new registrations are unaffiliated, then Democratic, then Republican. The exceptions for 2016 to 2020 were that those over age 65 in New London, Lyme, Old Lyme and North Stonington were more likely to register as a Democrat than unaffiliated, and in Salem and Preston, more voters age 25 or older registered as Republican than Democratic.

In New London, Groton and Montville, new Republican registrations increased at a higher rate than Democratic ones, and in Salem, Republican registrations grew at a higher rate than unaffiliated and Democratic.

Since 2016, New London has seen 1,932 new registered Democrats and 446 new registered Republicans but the increase in Republican registrations over the previous four years was 83.5% while only 30.5% for Democrats.

Old Lyme saw a 109.3% increase in new Democratic registrations while Salem saw a 125.3% increase in new Republican registrations; those were the highest in southeastern Connecticut for each party.

State sees record-breaking number of registered voters

A record-breaking 2,308,177 people are active registered voters in Connecticut, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill announced Thursday. According to University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald’s United States Election Project, nearly 2.6 million people are eligible to vote in Connecticut.

More than 700,000 new registrations have been recorded since 2016, compared to 450,000 from 2012 to 2016 and 250,000 from 2008 to 2012. There were 185,391 new voter registrations the past four years among those ages 18-24, compared to 125,497 over the previous four years.

“We are poised to see the largest number of voters participating in a Connecticut election ever, despite the 2020 election being held under the most challenging circumstances in a century,” Merrill said in a news release. “I hope to see every registered voter participating on Tuesday.”

The number of active registered voters includes 939,679 unaffiliated, 850,046 in the Democratic Party, 480,026 in the Republican Party and 38,426 in other parties.

WSHU reported that according to data the Secretary of the State’s Office provided earlier this month, total active voter registration increased 3% on average from 2016 until now across Connecticut municipalities.

The increase was higher than that in every city or town in southeastern Connecticut except Norwich, Preston and Waterford. Ledyard saw the largest increase, at 9.47%.

Mara Suttmann- Lea, professor of government at Connecticut College, said she was surprised to see the uptick in some areas with colleges, given that campuses aren’t at full capacity and many students are learning remotely.

But she wasn’t surprised to see increases in towns in southwestern Connecticut, given the migration from New York City during the pandemic.

Suttmann- Lea also commented on the “striking geographic polarization” in the maps from WSHU: Many towns saw Democratic voters decline as a percentage of total voters from 2016 to 2020 while many saw them increase, and the same can be said for Republican voters.

For example, Democratic voters make up a higher percentage of total voters in 2020 than in 2016 in Lyme, Old Lyme, East Lyme, Waterford, Stonington, Groton, Ledyard and Preston, while Republican voters make up a higher percentage in Montville and Preston.