New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Election Day chaos solution includes Yale University
NEW HAVEN — The city, in conjunction with Yale University, hopes to smooth the way for a better voting experience by opening a second site on Election Day where same-day voter registration can take place.
An election task force, established to remedy the sometimes chaotic long lines for Election Day Registration, and other issues, is investigating the use of Dwight Hall at 67 High St. as a place where anyone can register, but particularly Yale students, to take the pressure off the City Hall location.
The lines are always long for same day registration, but they were exacerbated last November, when the mailing station at Yale bounced back absentee ballot applications to students who did not provide a street mailing address.
Large numbers of students found they didn’t have time to rectify the situation and showed up at City Hall to register as voters and cast ballots on Election Day.
A study done by Daniel Penn Associates LLC, detailing the chaos at the 2018 election, found that some residents waited as much as 6.6 hours to vote. Kevin Arnold, the chief election moderator that day, said just over 700 people took advantage of same day registration at City Hall as the line snaked around the second floor, weaving in and out of meeting rooms.
The solution has always been to hire more people and the registrar of voters office, as part of a task force established to find solutions, plans to double the number of personnel hired for same-day registration this year for the general election in November, the town committee elections in March and the April presidential primary.
The co-chairs of that task force, whose next meeting is June 19, are Arnold and Naomi Campbell.
Burgwell J. Howard, an associate vice president of student life at Yale and dean of student engagement, is the point person and is working with the city and the university on the election issue.
“We want our students to participate in civic engagement and be invested in our city,” Howard told the task
force members at a recent meeting.
Howard said the university recognizes that getting students registered as voters is a big part of that, as is general voter education. The effort will make for a better-functioning system for the mayoral election this year and leave a process in place for the presidential election in 2020.
Howard said he is planning to meet with the undergraduate student leaders and graduate leaders later in the summer and early fall to get them involved and engaged.
“We recognize that during the last election, EDR was a real pinch point that was an issue, not only for our students, but obviously for the city. We want to partner to make that as smooth as possible to take some of the pressure off the Election Day experience,” Howard said.
He said the university has contracted with TurboVote to help students register electronically.
Howard said voter registration will be a topic for freshmen, as well as returning students, to get them registered before Election Day as the ideal. He said city registrars will be invited to move-in day to reach students at that point.
He said students also will be advised that registering here locally can sometimes invalidate an out-of-state scholarship that mandates a local address and voting in a home town by absentee ballot.
Howard said it will be an ongoing process as the deadlines for registering come up. He promised a “full blitz” with the city to make information available, as well as work with the student government on voter turnout.
He said he has had some
conversations with personnel at Dwight Hall, which is centrally located on the Old Campus and open to the public. A walk-through is being arranged to make sure it meets the needs of the city and Yale in terms of capacity.
Victor Fasano, one of the members of the task force, asked if the university could remind students to change their voter registration when they leave the city to help New Haven clean up the voter rolls.
Howard said they sometimes don’t know when students are coming back until they show up.
Democratic Registrar of Voters Shannel Evans said her office is planning periodic updates of its procedures, which it is currently undertaking with Jackie James of Gem Consulting.
James won a contract for a three-month study of the voting process, including the physical layout of the polling stations and the hiring of additional poll workers. At $50,000, she was the low bidder.
More than 200 people showed up at a recent job fair at the Hall of Records to apply for poll positions that need to be filled for Election Day. There will be another job fair at the same location at noon and 6 p.m. on June 26.
The jobs pay between $265 and $290, $100 more than the city has traditionally offered for what can be a 14-hour day. The positions to be filled include: moderators, assistant registrars, official checkers, ballot clerks, machine tenders, translators and floaters, a new position, for a total of 325 jobs.
James said this time around the workers will get a lunch break with the floater covering the positions at the 34 polling places, while Dwight Hall
would make it 35.
She said a lot of retirees and school personnel showed up and registered for a job, as did those who have done it before.
“We are just looking to get committed people who understand our expectations and will act professionally,” James said.
James and Evans, sometimes accompanied by others, have visited all the polling places and suggested some internal changes where the voting will take place, while also recommending several polls be relocated. Also, schematically they laid out what the set up should look like at each poll.
Planned changes include splitting the 9th Ward and 10th Ward polling locations, which are now both at Cross High School. The 10th Ward will remain at Cross, while the 9th Ward would go back to the East Rock Community Magnet School.
James said Ward 27, which is at the Mitchell Library, will have its polling place moved to the Mauro-Sheriden Interdistrict Magnet School, while Ward 26 will move to the Davis School from Mauro-Sheriden. James said this will put the polls in locations within the correct wards.
James said the other changes involve the same locations, but move voting from hallways to bigger spaces. James Hillhouse High School is one of them.
“There was no wiggle room and the lighting was bad,” James said. She said they are going back to determine the best replacement space.
“We realized the lines are getting longer and we anticipate a high voter turnout this year while gearing up for the presidential election next year,” James said of all the recommended changes.
Beecher School, West Hills School and Nathan Hale School were taken out of the hallways as were the voting areas at Barnard School, John Martinez School and the Bishop Woods School.
She said staffing will be increased at polling stations where historically there has been heavy voter turnout.
“We wanted to make sure staff was ready, set, go for what is coming,” James said.
“My goal was to create this more professionalized process where people weren’t coming in at the last minute. A lot of times they were scrambling for people. People were not trained to work a position. Now that we have a pool of applicants, we can pick from that and begin to train people,” James said.
She said the alders, the ward chairpersons and the state delegation have been told that if people want to work the polls, they have to come to the job fairs.
Jaywan Carter, who has been an assistant registrar at the polling station at the Atwater Senior Center, helped inform the job seekers what that entails. He is also trained as a moderator, which took seven hours of training on line, Carter said. Training for the other positions is much more streamlined.
Campbell was happy with the job turnout.
“We need the help. It was evident help was needed last time and I’m glad we are getting it this time,” Campbell said. “It is nice to see people are interested in coming out to help and make a little money in their pockets.”
She said the training will be important. Some who applied want to do different jobs than they did in previous elections, but it is important that they are versed in what is expected of them, Campbell said.
Angel Cabrera said he worked 36 hours straight at the last election, helping count absentee ballots after the polls closed.
“I feel you only make a difference, if you make a difference. Talking about it, is just that,” he said of his personal decision to put in that much time simply because it was needed.