Officials initially extended voting hours on Tuesday by an hour, to 10 p.m.
Mr. Blumenthal also benefited from a heavy Democratic turnout: several polling places in Bridgeport, one of the state's major Democratic strongholds, repeatedly ran out of ballots on Tuesday, prompting officials to extend voting hours there until 10 p.m.
However, election officials expanded early voting hours the evening and weekend during the week prior to the election, such that about 97percentt of the hours are retained even though the days have been cut.
The borders will be closed during the voting hours, officials said, to prevent candidates from paying foreigners to vote illegally.
In Florida, Republican officials cut back on early voting hours in an explicit attempt to eliminate voting on the Sunday before Election Day -- a day when many African Americans had previously gone to vote.
On Tuesday, election officials in states including Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, Indiana and Georgia extended voting hours to accommodate long lines at polling locations.
There is a reason that Republican officials have been trying to restrict voting hours and eligibility: Many of them are afraid of high turnout.
In dozens of other seats, voters gathered angrily outside polling stations after officials shut the doors as the voting hours expired with hundreds of would-be voters still waiting in line.
Officials in Dover, N.H., also extended voting hours after an email sent the wrong poll information to voters there.
An Ohio elections official defended the state's reduction in voting hours by writing, "We shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the urban -- read African-American -- voter-turnout machine".
Republican officials in Florida scaled back their early voting hours this year, too, eliminating voting on the Sunday before Election Day, when many black churches conducted "souls to the polls" voting drives.
