AP: Biden wins CT

Democrat Joe Biden won Connecticut’s seven electoral votes, defeating President Donald Trump, the Associated Press reported as polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday in a result that was an assumed conclusion.

Connecticut voters lined up with masks and

practiced social distancing in a historic, pandemic Election Day marred only by isolated incidents of erroneous ballots given out at the polls and confusion over access to absentee ballot counting with local election officials.

There was little of the partisan bickering or public confrontations that much of the nation feared in what some historians have called the most-contentious election since the 1850s.

Connecticut Democrats, with eyes to the major races throughout the country for president and the makeup of Congress, expected to retain — and possibly enlarge — their members of the General Assembly.

Like much of the country, Republicans and Democrats alike were anxious to see what happened in the main event, as polls closed across the country, with President Donald Trump battling for his political life while nationwide opinion polls indicated that Joe Biden had a high probability of winning. Veteran U.S. Reps. Jim Himes, D-4, and John Larson, D-1, claimed early evening victories.

J.R. Romano, the Republican state chairman, said Tuesday night that he was concerned about reports of the wrong ballots going out to voters in as many as a half dozen municipalities, including Killingly, New London, and in the portion of Stamford represented by first-term state Sen. Alex Kasser, D-Greenwich, who was challenged by Republican Ryan Fazio.

“We are trying to figure out how many votes might be impacted,” Romano said. “We don’t know what’s happening.”

Romano thought that the turnout might be equal to the 77 percent who cast ballots statewide in 2016. Like many, he admitted to anxiety after a long campaign in this historic pandemic year that did much to curtail traditional retail politics like knocking on doors.

“Everyone gets excited and nervous on Election Day,” Romano said.

“Turnout across the state has been remarkable, with long lines and voters really patient, with standing in the cold to cast their ballots,” said Democratic State Central Committee Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo of Trumbull. “We think it will be a great night for Democrats."

In an early sign that it could be a big night for Democrats, secondterm state Rep. Stephanie Cummings of Waterbury apparently lost to Democratic challenger Michael Di Giovancarlo, according to unofficial voting totals. Democrat Eleni Kavros DeGraw apparently won a seat representing Avon and Canton over first-term Rep. Leslee Hill.

In the state Senate, first-term Sen. Gennarro Bizzarro of New Britain was defeated by Democratic state Rep. Rick Lopes.

In a virtual news conference with political reporters at about 8:40 p.m., Gov. Ned Lamont said it was too early for many vote totals, but he hoped that the early Biden victory in Connecticut was a harbinger for other Democratic candidates.

“It’s probably going to be the biggest turnout, perhaps, in the history of our state and perhaps in the history of our country, at least in the last 50 years or so,” Lamont said.

Democrats were concerned about isolated incidents, including East Haven, where mail-in ballot moderators allegedly prevented observers from reporting the counting of absentee ballots and learning the names of those whose ballots were disqualified.

“Information is not allowed to leave this room until we’re done in here,“said Absentee Ballot Moderator Donald Thomas said. He said he sought to restrict what the observer reported based on his moderator’s manual, instructions from the Secretary of the State’s Office and advice from the town’s attorney. Other trouble spots for partisan observers occurred in Woodbridge.

A spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party, Patty McQueen, said the East Haven issue could be more than four ballots and in a tightly-contested race such as the 34th Senatorial District race between Democrat April Capone and Republican Paul Cicarella, “we think that it could make a difference.”

Democrats have a sizable advantage over Republicans in registration numbers, with 850,046 to the GOP’s 480,026. There are 939,679 unaffiliated voters as well, in what is projected to be another blue-state victory. The state’s five members of Congress and two U.S. senators are all Democrats, with the most-vulnerable likely to be first-term U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes.

The General Assembly has 22-14 and 91-60 Democratic majorities in the Senate and House, respectively.

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill said early Tuesday night that she was surprised by the turnout of in-person voting, after an effort to get mail-in ballots to every eligible voter.

“I know there were a lot of people that were saying ‘well, I got an absentee ballot, but I’ll just kind of keep it in my back pocket and decide at the last minute if I’m going to go in person,’” Merrill said in a public television interview. “But I think is a long history of voting in person in Connecticut. Today we saw lines.”

But the early morning lines at the nearly 800 polling places had disappeared in many places by the early afternoon, and some party officials wondered whether the 77-percent turnout of 2016, even with a record 680,000 mail-in ballots.

Shortly after noon, Merrill said that in New London, voters who had been given the wrong ballots for state House of Representative races were being contacted and allowed to cast ballots for the correct candidates without affecting their other votes.

As a sign of the excitement – or perhaps the anxiety – of this contentious election year, voters in many polling places were met with long lines in the predawn. In the Shelton Intermediate School, Head Moderator Joe Dobrow said there were about 75 people waiting when the doors opened at 6 to a socially distant gymnasium with address checkers behind clear plastic screens.

“The line was out the door much of the morning,” Bobrow said during a relative lull at about 12:30 p.m., when nearly 2,400 had voted. He said there were no problems in the balloting, with individual cases of voters who had changed addresses being given forms to fill in their new addresses, then being allowed to vote.

He said that there were no problems with voters wearing masks.

At East Haven's Grove J. Tuttle School polling place, voters on both sides said it was an important election for them -- and all said the lines weren't as big a problem as they might have expected.

"I voted for Trump" and "mostly Republican except for one Democrat," said East Haven resident John Hamm. Which Democrat? "Rosa," he said, referring to 29year incumbent U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3. Why? "She's got deep roots in the community," said Hamm, who wore a Navy blue "U.S. Navy Vet" mask to the polls.

Ronald and Patricia Fusco, who both voted for Biden and the Democratic candidates at Grove J. Tuttle School, the election was "special for us because we're Democrats and we want" things to change, said Ronald Fusco. "We just hope the results are different from 2016."

The biggest issue for the Fuscos was healthcare. They both worry about losing insurance protection for pre-existing conditions. "We're scared," said Patricia Fusco, a cancer survivor.