Politics & Government

West Hartford Special Subcommittee Working to Solve Voting Problems

Committee members committed to prevent recurrence of November 2012 delays.

A special subcommittee met again recently to discuss resolving the issues that arose at the town’s polling places during the last election.

Residents at most - if not all - of the nine polling locations experienced longer-than-expected wait times to cast their ballots on Nov. 6, 2012, which led the office of the Secretary of the State to step in that day to alleviate the problems.

It was the first election during which the town had condensed the number of polling locations from 20 to 9. And almost as soon as the polls opened, the complaints started rolling in about residents having to wait up to an hour to vote.

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Some problems were quickly resolved. At Conard, for example, a teachers' conference that had been scheduled on the same day as the election resulted in a full parking lot that morning before voters arrived. A couple of phone calls later, and the conference attendees' cars were moved to an auxiliary parking lot.

Others problems, however, were not so easily solved.

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The subcommittee, comprising Mayor Scott Slifka, Town Councilor Denise Hall, Registrars of Voters Carolyn Thornberry and Eleanor Brazell, Town Manager Ron Van Winkle and Deputy Corporation Counsel Pat Alair, discussed ways to prevent long wait times from happening again.

Among the solutions bandied about included splitting the voting books more equally - they initially were by street name beginning A through M and N through Z.

Those splits last November resulted in inequitable distributions at some polling locations. For example, at Bristow Middle School, there were 3,162 registered voters in line A-M and 1,785 registered voters in line N-Z.

Similarly, at Town Hall, there were 3,348 registered voters in line A-M and just 1,917 registered voters in line N-Z.

Braeburn School (3,151 in A-M and 1,935 in N-Z) experienced the same issue.

In addition, the subcommittee discussed adding registration lines, which sounds like an axiomatic solution.

But Thornberry said it’s not that simple.

Some polling locations physically may not accommodate the extra lines, Thornberry said. What’s more, there are issues of getting qualified, trained people to staff the extra lines.

Without getting into specifics, Thornberry said that the office of the Registrar of Voters is doing its own review of election staff.

And while some of the proposed solutions will be adopted prior to the next election in November, West Hartford polling places likely will not see the crush of people - over 80 percent of the town’s 38,000 registered voters cast ballots in 2012 - at the municipal election.

Indeed, Unless something drastic takes place in the coming months, the municipal election in West Hartford on Nov. 5 will likely draw about 30 percent of registered voters.

In an interview after the meeting, Slifka acknowledged the issues from November 2012 and noted that, considering that people in West Hartford had become accustomed to voting within a few minutes, changes would be implemented to keep the problems from happening again.

Slifka noted that the change from 20 to 9 polling locations was not based on finances, but on more practical considerations. For one, there wasn’t enough activity to justify 20 polling locations during typical elections, Slifka said. Further, some polling locations did not meet certain legal requirements - such as being accessible pursuant to the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Finally, it was becoming increasingly difficult to recruit people to staff 20 polling locations - such recruitment requires not only time, but training.

Slifka noted that people needed to be trained on same-day registration and other election protocols.

“It’s all for a good reason,” Slifka said. “But the demands keep increasing.”

Slifka said that the subcommittee - which will meet again in September - has been meeting on a monthly basis and is committed to ensuring that West Hartford residents’ collective right to vote is not compromised.

Correction: the initial article stated that voting lines were split by last name. They are split by street name. West Hartford Patch regrets the error.


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