New Haven Independent

Posted by: Sarah Trapnell | August 8, 2006 1:57 PM

I was Rose Santana's representative, her "eyes and ears" at the Clifton House Nursing Home on the day the absentee balloting took place in Septemeber, 2005. Alderwoman Santana was chased out of the building while Mayor Destafano, his staff, and Aldermanic candidate Alex Rhodeen took full advantage of their time to campaign with residents.

The Office of the Registrar's reps were two really nice but not particularly assertive women. We chatted in a friendly fashion, but it was only after repeated requests by me that they moved into the common room where voting was to take place and asked the mayor's staffers to leave off campaigning and to leave the room.

The balloting then began in a room littered with Rhodeen campaign literature and members of DeStefano's staff still "helping" sometimes demented patients with how to vote for Rhodeen. "Make sure you mark it this way," one female staffer intoned to a slumping patient. As Alderwoman Santana's rep, I objected frequently and persistently until the Registrar's reps persuaded all the mayor's staffers except for one, acting as Rhodeen's rep, to leave the room. One female staffer just ignored all requests and I had to take aside a Registrar rep and insist on her ceasing to campaign and to leave the room. That took at least five minutes.

Then I had to insist that all the campaign literature was removed or at least put out of sight. There was no literature from the Santana campaign present. It was all Rhodeen, all over the place. A Clifton House resident who still had all her faculties and was helping organize the event shot dagger eyes at me. "Who are you? Why are you here?" she demanded. I felt that if looks could kill, I would have been dead on the spot. She loudly praised the remaining Destafano staffer, deputy chief of staff Rob Smuts, for his neat appearance and professionalism. Evidently, being a neighborhood resident in slacks and rain jacket was, in her opinion, no match for Mr. Smuts in suit and tie. (He did look sharp, I have to admit!)

Then Mr. Smuts and I oversaw the absentee balloting in that group room and afterwards the individual voting of the bedridden patients. After Rob Smuts realized that I wasn't going to pull any political dirty tricks, he relaxed, I think. We had a good discussion about the upcoming Governor's race. But during that discussion I did ask how the mayor could justify his numerous staff members engaging in political campaigning for Rhodeen while they were on the city's payroll. Mr. Smuts said that technically they were on vacation time or leaves of absence. To me that seemed pretty specious, but maybe it's legal.

The whole event was a real poltical education for me. The Registrar of Voters' staffers were well-meaning but clearly not conversant with all the regulations of supervised balloting or with how to enforce those regulations when one campaign was determined to influence the vote in every way possible, legal and maybe not so legal. This is the testimony that I gave to the State Elections Enforcement investigator when she called me at home for a report on the incident.