New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
‘We want people to register and vote’
State might help city get a 2nd Election Day registration site
NEW HAVEN — The Registrar of Voters office apparently asked after the deadline, but the Secretary of the State’s office is looking to see if New Haven can set up a second site where Election Day Registration can take place to avoid crowds that have descended on City Hall in the past.
Gabe Rosenberg, spokesman for the Secretary of the State’s office, said the new legislation allowing more than one site to register people on Election Day had a deadline for seeking permission of 60 days before the election, which was Sept. 4.
Information Technology personnel in New Haven said they were pulled into a conference call with Democratic Registrar of Voters Shannel Evans and the
Secretary of the State’s office about two weeks ago.
They were told then that SOTS tech workers would need to scope out the location, order the necessary equipment, including a dedicated ISDN line and arrange installation and configuration, which was not possible given how close it was to the election.
But while it was a late request, Rosenberg said the person the city contacted was not in a position to give that direction and “if practical,” the state would determine if the work on a second site
is still a possibility in New Haven.
“The goal is to make this work,” Rosenberg said. “We want people to register and vote. It is good for everyone to make it work.”
It was unclear whether the fact that New Haven’s network through City Hall and the Hall of Records and its schools are different would make a difference in connecting with a second site.
Evans did not answer inquiries on when she first broached the idea to the state on a second site. In answering questions from the members of the City Services and Environmental Policy Committee for its Sept. 3 meeting, she wrote that she had contacted Yale University officials as a potential site, but had not heard back.
Twenty municipalities, which historically have had the greatest number of voters registering to vote on Election Day, are eligible for $2,500 each to help with the EDR, in addition to funds for poll workers, sanitizing the polling sites and protective clothing for workers, with New Haven set for the most funds at $93,300.
Middletown has a second site set up and is now connected to the secretary’s office given the number of Wesleyan students who may need to register on Election Day.
Middletown Mayor Ben Florsheim said the state had to hard wire a connection through a firehouse near Wesleyan to access the Connecticut Voter Registration System.
Rosenberg said New Haven is not the only city that is interested in an additional EDR location. He said this also applies to Wilton, Fairfield and Hartford.
“Middletown and Wilton are all set. We are working with Fairfield to work out the siting.” he said. Hartford was late, but the office is also discussing a site with it.
“We are going to reach out to towns that should at least be thinking about an extra EDR site this week,” Rosenberg said.
New Haven has had logjams in previous elections when hundreds of students had jammed into City Hall in a line that would snake up to the second floor into the aldermanic chamber, across to a conference room and then back to the alders’ chamber where they would vote, hours after they started their quest.
Chief Election Moderator Kevin Arnold said they thought about using the Metropolitan Business Academy on Water Street as a second site for EDR because it was close to City Hall, it is easy to walk to from downtown, it has the space and it is handicap accessible.
“It checked all the boxes” and would take the pressure off again using only one site, Arnold said.
Evans said they have been in touch with the undergraduate group, Yale Democrats, which is working with others on the campus, to smooth the way for students to be able to vote in the presidential election, either in New Haven, or back in their home states.
Molly Shapiro, a senior at the university and president of the Yale Democrats, said she remembers same day voter registration in 2018 in New Haven.
“It was truly a disaster,” Shapiro said.
The large number of students registering at the same time occurred because of a Yale rule where its residential colleges do not accept mail on behalf of students, who are expected to have their own post office boxes, Shapiro said. Application forms for absentee ballots were sent back or discarded when they arrived at the residential colleges.
When this became apparent, it was too late for the students to vote in their hometowns and they rushed to vote in New Haven.
Shapiro said the Yale Democrats are working in conjunction with nonpartisan groups, such as the
Yale College Council and Yale Votes to get students prepared. She said members of her group have been assigned to research states to learn the voting rules to make certain students stay informed and apply in plenty of time.
This year is different than 2018 in that the mail system glitch at Yale is fixed and there are fewer students on the campus, but the interest is expected to be more intense and COVID-19 rules will mandate longer lines and more absentee ballots.
Evans said they are helping to get students who will vote here registered by Oct. 27 to avoid having to do it on Nov. 3.
On Oct. 27, the last official day to register, you can do so online up to 11:59 p.m.; the Registrar’s Office will be open until 8 p.m. that day.
Evans said her office will have voter registration sessions on the Yale campus, as well.
Burgwell Howard, senior associate dean of Yale College, in an email, said the university is “focusing on student voter registration and voting participation for the 2020 cycle.”
“Our goal is to get any students who have not registered already, in Connecticut or elsewhere, registered this month, so that there is ample time by midOctober for them to vote absentee or here in New Haven. We’ve shared information on a website created to assist this process https://vote.yale.edu/,” Howell wrote.
Anyone who needs to register in Connecticut, can go to https://voterregi stration.ct.gov/OLVR/wel come.do at the secretary of the state’s office or call 203-946-8035. Other questions on the election can be answered and absentee ballot application can be found at the registrar’s website. You can also check to make sure you are registered. If you have a new address, that should be updated.
In New Haven, between the City Clerk’s office and the secretary of the state’s office, applications for an absentee ballot should reach all registered voters in the city, City Clerk Michael Smart said.
They can be mailed back for a ballot, or put into drop boxes, two of which are outside the Hall of Records at 200 Orange St. and two more are scheduled to be placed outside City Hall at 165 Church St. although some alders wanted those set up in neighborhoods.
If a resident is interested in working at the polls on Election Day, he or she can apply at the the Registrar’s Office.
Evans said that she hired between 8 and 12 workers for each of the polls in the August primary, where turnout was light, but that is not expected to be the case in November in one of the country’s most hotly contested presidential elections. Evans said she plans to hire some 35 more workers for Nov. 3, which would put the number at between 350 and 500 workers for 40 polls.
In New Haven there are currently 39,114 registered Democrats, 2,532 Republicans and 15,963 unaffiliated voters for a total of 58,625, much more than those who could have potentially voted in the Democratic and Republican primaries in August.
The Board of Alders is expected to have another workshop on the city’s plans for Election Day in October on the EDR plan, adequate staff to handle absentee ballots and the final number on poll workers.