Overseas ballots on the way

NORWALK — The Town Clerk’s Office hustled Friday afternoon to mail, or in other cases email, overseas and military ballots to Norwalkers living abroad.

“We didn’t get the ballot information until almost 3:30 p.m.” said Town Clerk Richard McQuaid. “I believe there could be more changes, but we got the ones out for the people who will be farthest away to vote.”

The Secretary of the State’s Office doesn’t expect to finalize candidates’ names — and thus allow town clerks offices to print final ballots — until next week.

“We’ll be playing fantasy election day again on Monday,” said McQuaid, referring to daily updates from the Secretary of the State’s Office on who’s running and who isn’t. “You have players that are playing, and players that aren’t players and players that have dropped out. It’s really been crazy.”

Regardless, Saturday is the deadline for Connecticut town clerks to send out overseas and military ballots in advance of Election Day, Nov. 6.

“The overseas and military ballots must go out by tomorrow (Saturday), so practically speaking every town is going to get them out today,” Gabe Rosenberg, spokesman for the Secretary of the State’s Office, said Friday. “If possible, the town sends a printed ballot or an email ballot that has the names filled in, and then the person overseas prints out the ballot and mails it back. Many towns are sending out a blank ballot with a list of candidates.”

In that case, the voter writes in the candidates’ names, fills in the bubbles and returns the ballot by mail.

McQuaid said late Friday afternoon that his office had sent out 25 overseas ballots. He noted that such voters, as of Friday, had only 45 days to receive and return the ballots.

“If you put it on your calendar and say, ‘I’ll get to it,’ if you’re in Luxembourg, it’s not going to work well,” McQuaid said. “They (overseas ballots) go everywhere — London and Luxembourg and Ireland and Singapore.”

Rosenberg said the Secretary of the State’s Office would finalize candidates’ names next week, allowing town clerks have final ballots printed. The fact that all names hadn’t been finalized Friday was less problematic with the overseas and military ballots. For those voters, there are fewer candidates from whom to choose.

“The people who’ve moved abroad and get the overseas ballots, they’re only eligible to vote for the federal offices,” Rosenberg said.

On Oct. 5, absentee ballots must be available to Connecticut residents who’ll be out of town or traveling abroad on Election Day.

“We’ll have everything set for the towns, so they’ll be able to give out their absentee ballots by Oct. 5,” Rosenberg said.

As of Friday afternoon, the Norwalk Town Clerk’s Office had received 163 applications for absentee ballots, according to McQuaid.