Steps Taken to Address Long Lines at West Hartford Polling Places

Almost as soon as the polls opened in West Hartford, the complaints started pouring in about long lines at many of the town's polling places.

"If your street is A-M, prepare for long wait at Bristow. Awful organization. No line for N-Z streets. Who is responsible?" read a message to West Hartford Patch via Twitter from one resident at 7:10 a.m. on Election Day.

At 10:35, resident Steve Majerus-Collins wrote the following as a comment to an Election Day story:

"What’s happening at West Hartford’s polling places today is a travesty. The lines are hours long at some of them – at Bristow Middle School, for example, the long hallway is packed with people who aren’t even allowed to sit down.  Why is this happening? It’s not because of an extraordinary turnout.  It’s because the town sliced the number of polling places in half and didn’t bother to add personnel to the ones that remain. Moreover, they are using street name books to check registration that contain nowhere near the same number of actual voters. As a result, people who live on streets starting with A through M are stuck in long lines while those lucky enough to live on streets in the latter half of the alphabet can breeze right through. It’s like we’re suddenly living in a Third World country, or maybe Florida.  The town needs to act RIGHT NOW to fix this. Hire more election workers, at any pay rate. There must be trained people who were there last time but not hired this time around.  The process must be sped up immediately or hundreds and hundreds of West Hartford citizens are going to lose their opportunity to vote today. This is just awful. Town leaders can’t just fret and worry and wonder. They need to do something to correct this as much as possible with no delay.  And let people in line sit down, for God’s sake."

Comments on the same story and on Facebook raised many of the same issues – waits of up to an hour at Braeburn, Town Hall, Conard, Sedgwick – and frustration at the unequal way in which the voting books seemed to separate streets.

Frustrated voters brought their concerns to West Hartford's registrars of voters as well, and steps were taken immediately to alleviate some of the problems.

Republican Registrar of Voters Eleanor Brazell said that West Hartford is a big town, where voter turnout in a presidential election is usually at least 80 percent. "We perhaps should have had four checkers," she said, rather than the two individuals who were initially stationed at each polling place checking people in.

West Hartford consolidated its polling places from 20 down to nine earlier this year, but the first tests of the new plan were primaries where no problems or lines were reported.

Brazell had just come from a meeting with Peggy Reeves and Shannon Wegele who were in West Hartford representing the Secretary of the State's office. They stepped in after many reports of long lines in West Hartford, and authorized splitting the voting books and allowing additional checkers. Some polling places had the number of checkers increased to four, while others got three.

League of Women Voters volunteers and other poll workers already trained in those roles were sent to alleviate the bottlenecks at the polls.

"It's under control," said Brazell, who anticipated a rush again in the evening, but said that it would be more organized than it was in the morning.

Democratic Registrar Carolyn Thornberry said, "It was the crush of the morning. We weren't prepared for that kind of crush."

Anecdotal reports from several of the moderators indicated that 50 to 75 percent, or even more, of West Hartford's registered voters had cast their votes by lunchtime.

Mayor Scott Slifka said that although the crowds seemed to have calmed by early afternoon, "It shouldn't have happened, and it won't happen again."

Slifka apologized on behalf of the town to those who spent a good part of their morning in line, as well as to those who left in frustration.

"We threw every resource in town into addressing this issue as soon as possible. We identified and thankfully made some simple fixes," Slifka said.

By 8 a.m., some of the traffic flow and and line issues had been resolved by sending out police and public works officials to the polls, assisting with situations like elderly residents being forced to wait outside in the cold.

The Secretary of the State's office needed to get involved to split the voting books, which were originally divided at each polling location into streets "A-M" and "N-Z." He explained that the books are certified before the election, and changing that required a legal decision by a representative from the Secretary of the State's office.

"The books have now been split into thirds or quarters, but not in time to address the lines in the morning," said Slifka.

He agreed that the other variable was the incredibly high turnout in a very high profile election, which had "stressed the system."

"Hopefully things will be smooth tonight, or at least smoother than this morning," Slifka said.

By 1:30 p.m., the lines at Braeburn Elementary School were significantly shorter. Steve and Jennifer May said that they had first tried to vote at noon, and the wait was an hour and a half. "It was 15 minutes now," Jennifer said after voting at 1:30 p.m. However, Steve said that he hadn't bothered to use a privacy booth to fill out his ballot, and had used his own pen which speeded up the process.

The story was the same at Town Hall. Tom Hoisl said he had tried to vote at 6:15 a.m., but left rather than waiting in a 40-minute line. "I came back and walked right up," Hoisl said at 2 p.m.

By 3:30 p.m., there were virtually no waits at Conard, where anecdotal reports from poll workers indicated that nearly 90 percent of registered voters appeared to have already cast their votes.

That was a major change from 8:45 a.m., when Dr. Joanne Kuntz originally tried to vote.

"It was like a ride at Disney. You had no idea where the line would end," Kuntz said. She heard the wait was about an hour, and couldn't stay because she had to treat patients at the UConn Health Center. At 3:30 p.m., she walked right in and voted.

Slifka said the Town Council, which originally made the bipartisan decision to reduce the number of polling places, would revisit the issue before the next election.

"I'm sorry for what happened this morning. It won't happen again," he said.