New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Alders see a lot ‘has not been answered’ about voting
NEW HAVEN — The Registrar of Voters office has turned down a second opportunity to have the state install equipment needed for the city to open a new site with more capacity or a second site for Election Day Registration, according to the secretary of the state’s office.
Meanwhile, the City Town Clerk’s office estimated it has processed some 5,000 requests for absentee ballots, though this is not yet reflected on the state’s Central Voter Registration System. It is less than half of the estimated 11,000 applications the office had received as of mid-week.
The public and alders on the City Services and Environmental Policy Committee have expressed frustration on a lack of specifics on Election Day Registration, or EDR, and other procedures a month before the presidential election. Another question broached is why all four dropboxes where applications for an absentee ballot and the ballots themselves can be
left were placed in front of or to the left of the Hall of Records, rather than in spots around the city.
On a new or additional EDR site, the secretary of the state’s office sent letters to communities dated Wednesday that they might want to consider this, given the large numbers they they have had to register on Election Day in the past. The deadline is Oct. 10, but Gabe Rosenberg, spokesman for the secretary of the state’s office, said they may not be able to accommodate everyone.
Democratic Registrar of Voters Shannel Evans has not returned a call to explain her decision, which is solely her purview.
Resident Aaron Goode said the city needs a robust voter education effort.
“I am not really seeing that yet,” he said. He said he is getting a lot of questions from people who never got an AB application in the primary and they are worried about this election. He said more information is needed on the registrar’s website.
Alder Abby Roth, D-7, said the registrar’s office has said it hopes to have everything set up for the EDR in City Hall by the end of the day on Oct. 30, so “they can run through it the day before the election.”
“That ... makes me nervous,” Roth said, given the history of chaos with same-day registration in past elections.
A workshop on the election was scheduled, but City Town Clerk Michael Smart did not attend, citing he was too busy as Friday is the first day ballots could be sent out. Evans appeared at the virtual meeting for a matter of minutes, telling the alders to submit their questions to her,
before she left to conduct a training session.
On the number of processed ballots in each town posted on the secretary of the state’s website as of Thursday, New Haven had 1,332, compared to Branford’s 5,680, Fairfield’s 10,650, Bridgeport’s 6,235, the 12,924 for Norwalk, 15,335 for Stamford, 4,838 in Guilford and 8,745 for Hamden.
Assistant City Clerk May Gardner-Reed said New Haven is using its IQS software to process the applications, because it is quicker than the state’s system, which takes around 40 minutes for 10 applications. She said the majority of the 5 staff members and 4 election hires are concentrating on processing the ABs, with the rest separately putting the information into the state’s system.
Rosenberg said other towns are not having these problems. Using one system and then transferring the information to another amounts to double work.
Smart on Friday said he is hiring more temporary workers for
the election and expects to have a team of 20 workers in his office, which includes the current staff, by next week. He said they will be working all weekend. He said the alders are expected to vote Monday on accepting a $107,517 state grant toward election expenses.
He said a memorandum of understanding is being signed with the unions as they bring on this extra help.
Smart said his office is working with IT from Wallingford to help speed up the process.
Gardner-Reed said the ballots arrived Friday and the team was busy stuffing some 5,000 envelopes. By late Friday afternoon they had made four trips to the Post Office.
State statutes require that ballots be sent out within 24 hours of being received. The first day town clerks could mail them was Friday
Rosenberg, said when that office first sent applications to all the registered voters in the state, its system was overwhelmed, but it increased the bandwidth and had not heard since if it was a problem.
He said New Haven’s voter registration office has been on calls with the state in recent days and it did not mention this problem. They still had not heard from them by Friday.
The Central Voting Registration System is updated Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings showing how many ballots each town has sent to voters. In order to be able to track where a ballot is, you have to be entered into the system. As of Sept. 30, the total number processed across the state was 426,528.
Roth said this is not only an important election, but also a complicated one given COVID-19 and the large number of absentee ballots. She said the alders have to find a way to get clear answers to their questions, which have not been forthcoming. She said they still don’t have a final figure on how many poll workers will be needed except for an estimate of 600. Committee Chairwoman Anna Festa, D-10, promised to call another meeting with Evans and Smart.
Common Cause Executive Director Cheri Quickmire wrote to the city saying it was disappointing that there will not be an additional site for the EDR to eliminate the bottleneck that occurred in 2018. She said clustering the four dropboxes near City Hall “defeats the purpose of providing accessibility for voters and I would say unacceptable.”
She said one at City Hall is enough with the rest in neighborhoods where people have transportation issues or there is a large population of seniors. Quickmire said she is interested in the registrar’s voter education plan so people know where to vote and also understand the absentee ballot process. It is not well understood in Connecticut, she said.
Smart, in an email, said he put the fourth dropbox in the cutthrough between City Hall and the Hall of Records because there is a security camera there, which is not available in front of City Hall. He said the third box was put directly in front of 200
Orange St. “to address safety and disability concerns.” Others have suggested putting some outside libraries.
Alder Steve Winter, D-21, also wants a special meeting with Evans on the specifics of the EDR plan.
“There is still a lot that has not been answered,” he said.
He said people have a lot of questions in any election, but “with the presidency and our Democratic system at stake during a pandemic, we do need to have clarity on this for the public’s sake.” He wants to know when the ballots are arriving. Winters said a link should be put on the website that takes people to a list where their polling place is.
Resident John Martin said people “really care about this” and need answers.
Lydia Bornick said one of the lessons she is learning is that “I don’t know the role of the city clerk, the registrar and who they are accountable to. I assume they are accountable to the voters.” She said the information coming from them is inadequate.
She said she is finding more people want to vote in person. Specifically, she wants to know the setup at the Troup School and how people will be kept safe from the coronavirus. Bornick said there are a lot of people who are willing to help out and that questions of the officials are not personal attacks.