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Clinton, Trump Win Decisively in Town; Kasich Draws Support

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Greenwich voters went to the polls at a 51.73 percent turnout, higher than usual.
Greenwich voters went to the polls at a 51.73 percent turnout, higher than usual.

At 7:57 p.m. on Tuesday night at Greenwich Town Hall, the District 2 polling station let out a collective “Polls are closed!” as they shut the doors for the final vote count of the night.

Lou Caravella, who had been greeting and helping voters at one of the 12 voting districts in town since 6 a.m., placed his seat in front of the doorway, acting as a barricade to the outside world as polling officials tallied the final batch of votes.

“There we go,” said Caravella, pointing at the clock that was three minutes fast. “We started at six in the morning according to that clock, and we’ll close at 8 p.m. We’ve got to go by the rules.”

Two and a half hours later, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had officially won the state’s Democratic presidential primary and businessman Donald Trump the Republican presidential primary.

Greenwich’s poll numbers yielded a lopsided win for Clinton over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. She won 3,206 (68.1 percent) votes compared to Sanders’s 1,443 (30.6 percent). Clinton performed especially well in Fairfield County, winning 17 of the 23 towns. She also took the populous Hartford and New Haven areas, helping her win the state by a somewhat snug 51.8 to 46.4 percent margin. Clinton will be awarded 28 delegates, and Sanders 27.

On the Republican side, Donald Trump took the town in which he once owned an estate by a safe margin over John Kasich. Trump collected 3,007 votes (48.1 percent) to Kasich’s respectable 2,591 (41.4 percent). Senator Ted Cruz, on the other hand, fared poorly in Greenwich, collecting only 552 votes, or 8.8 percent of the GOP vote.

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Greenwich voters in District 2 went to Town Hall to cast their vote in Tuesday’s Primary.

Statewide, Trump scored a resounding victory, winning 57.9 percent of the GOP vote while Kasich finished a distant second, with 28.4 percent. Cruz finished a distant third with 11.7 percent. Since Trump crossed the 50 percent threshold, all 28 delegates at stake accrue to him.

In Greenwich, total turnout was calculated at 51.73 percent—higher than usual—with 10,132 in-person votes and 617 absentee votes, according to the town’s Registrar of Voters.

Polling stations around Greenwich had low turnout numbers in the early hours; rainy weather may have delayed voting for some until later in the day.

Only three people were waiting outside Greenwich High School, the District 7 voting center, as doors opened at 6 a.m., according to poll moderators. By 11 a.m., only 241 votes had been cast at the location, and by the end of the day, 837 votes (in-person and absentee ballots) were counted, making for a town-low 45.7 percent turnout rate.

In comparison, election officials say that for a general election they expect 60 to 80 people waiting when the doors are opened.

“This is a new facility for us this year. Usually, we’re outside the auditorium and now we’re outside the MISA building around the back of the school,” said Nick Edwards, the District 7 poll moderator. “We had to get our phone lines working here, and we got a lot of help from the IT department here at Greenwich High, but we have a whole infrastructure from the registrar’s office to help set up all of the electronics. They come the day before with the wires and computers, so it’s a tremendous team effort. We’re just one of twelve teams.”

Many district polling locations reported a spike in turnout around noon and again between 6 and 7 p.m.

District 5 (Riverside School) and District 6 (Old Greenwich School) came in with the highest voter turnout rates, 57.9 percent and 57.7 percent, respectively.

Poll Moderators and officials tally the final votes in Tuesday's Primary
Poll Moderators and officials tally the final votes in Tuesday’s Primary

Poll moderators had little to report when it came to mechanical and technical issues with voting machines, but there were instances of unaffiliated voters who were turned away due to state voting laws.

“The biggest problem we’ve experienced is that we’ve had voters who are unaffiliated who claim that they are Republicans or Democrats because they say they always vote that way,” said John Vecchiolla, a poll moderator at Julian Curtiss School. “If you were a member of one party and wanted to switch to the other party, you needed a 90-day wait period. People can sometimes be very upset and vocal about it.”

While Trump took the majority of the Republican vote in eight of the town’s voting districts, Kasich picked up slightly more votes in District 5, District 6, District 7 and District 11.

Meanwhile, Clinton surged in all 12 districts, winning by convincing margins, as Sanders’ closest call was in District 4, where he received 42 percent of the Democratic vote.

Trump would go on to win the primaries in all five states up for grabs Tuesday night, while Clinton took four of the five states, leaving Sanders the victor in the open primary in Rhode Island.

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