HARTFORD, CT — A total of 1,675,955 voters cast ballots in the election Nov. 8, a record high number, although turnout, which was just under 77 percent of registered voters, fell short of a record.
Secretary of the State Denise Merrill said there was an all-time high 2,178,169 registered voters eligible to vote. The 1,675,955 who did vote represent a 76.94 percent turnout.
Donald Trump won the presidential election but he lost the vote in Connecticut, where Hillary Clinton garnered close to 55 percent of the popular vote to Trump’s 41 percent. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson won about 3 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein won 1.5 percent.
The record turnout, percentage-wise, was in 1992 when 1,645,609 voted for an 83.9 percent turnout. That was the year that Bill Clinton won the presidential race against Republican George Bush and third-party candidate H. Ross Perot.
The town of Somers, with a percentage turnout of 94.55 percent, topped the state’s 169 towns in turnout in this year’s voting.
“The total of 1,675,955 voters is unprecedented,” Merrill said. “That shows that election modernization is working . . . Hundreds of thousands of people registered to vote online and tens of thousands more took advantage of Election Day Registration and the streamlined motor-voter system, which enables citizens to register while applying for a driver’s license.”
Overall turnout by year:
• 2016: 1,675,955 (76.94 percent)
• 2012: 1,560,640 (73.89 percent)
• 2008: 1,644,845 (78.14 percent)
• 2004: 1,607,808 (78.65 percent)
• 2000: 1,474,103 (77.54 percent)
• 1996: 1,410,746 (74.99 percent)
• 1992: 1,645,609 (83.9 percent)
• 1988: 1,461,962 (81.4 percent)
• 1984: 1,490,946 (82.4 percent)
• 1980: 1,423,403 (82.8 percent)
Top 10 municipalities in CT for Voter Turnout in 2016 (as a percentage of registered voters):
1. Somers – 94.55
2. Harwinton – 90.75
3. Pomfret – 90.65
4. Lyme – 90.38
5. Cornwall – 90.13
6. Franklin – 88.87
7. Sprague – 88.77
8. Bethlehem – 88.13
9. Andover – 87.99
10. Bolton – 87.73
