Secretary of the State: Elections will take place Nov. 6, with or without power

Hartford — The Nov. 6 elections will go ahead as planned in Connecticut, despite the scores of polling places currently without power, Secretary of the State Denise Merrill announced Wednesday.

About 100 of the state's 773 polling sites served by Connecticut Light & Power had no electricity as of Wednesday afternoon, she said, but there are no plans as yet to relocate most of these voting spots, as power may be restored in time.

But the registrars of voters in New London, in conjunction with the city clerk, have moved the city's third voting district polling place from Ocean Beach Park to the Harbor School building, 432 Montauk Ave., because of storm damage at the beach.

Merrill said the state's voting machines can run on battery power, "so even if there were no power in, let's say, a town hall, we could still operate the scan machines." Twelve southeastern Connecticut polling places — in East Lyme, Lyme, Mystic, New London, Niantic, North Stonington, Old Lyme, Sprague and Stonington — were on CL&P's outage list.

"Fortunately for us, many of our polling places are in things like fire stations, schools, town halls," Merrill said, noting that such buildings are a priority. "I think most of them will be up and running by Election Day."

The voter registration deadline has been extended to 8 p.m. Thursday by gubernatorial executive order. This close to the election, all new registrations must be done in person at a local town hall.

Individuals who miss the registration deadline still have the option of picking up a special presidential ballot from their local town hall on Nov. 6, but the ballot is for only the presidential race.

j.reindl@theday.com