New Haven Independent

The unveiling took place before the Representative Town Meeting (RTM).

The town’s registrar of voters has been working on four separate proposals to realign five election districts for the past six months. Despite a tight timetable that could severely curtail public input and presumably confuse massive numbers of voters, the registrar said final decisions need to be made by the July RTM meeting.

The RTM Rules and Ordinances Committee will take up the redistricting issue at a meeting scheduled for Tuesday June 17 at 7 p.m. at the Canoe Brook Center. The public is urged to attend.

The registrar of voters has a two-fold reason for change: to better balance and align the districts with the current population and to find larger buildings to accommodate new electronic voting machines. As of the last election, there were a total of 17,878 registered voters in town, with the unaffiliated voters out front with 9,493 voters. There are 5,690 Democrats and 2,695 Republicans. Those numbers are climbing, election officials said.

Dan Hally, the Democratic registrar of voters, put four separate map proposals on an easel for the RTM members to view.

“The state has guidelines by which they recommend that voting districts be divided up and apportioned. In our case we are way out of proportion. In the Fourth District we have about 5,600 voters, whereas in the Third District we only have 1,900. You almost have a 3-1 set-up there, which is out of whack in the state. The state is aware of it and suggested a while back that it be changed.”

Polling places, like post offices, are a strong part of community life. People meet, they talk, and they pass the time of day. They say they feel a comfort returning to a familiar place. But the new re-apportionment proposals are based on numbers, not need. Neither Hally nor Marion Burkard, the Republican registrar of voters, mentioned the community component.

Frank Twohill, the Republican minority leader, understood immediately what was at stake: “The redistricting could cause the smaller districts, Short Beach, Indian Neck and Stony Creek/Pine Orchard to lose their present character as most redistricting proposals adds thousands of new voters to each of these districts. Is this what people want? Let us hear from them before the RTM votes. He suggested that each district hold its own public meeting.

“We must take our time to reach a wise decision to benefit as many people as possible.”

Twohill told the Eagle afterward that it was unlikely that this process would be completed within a month, and it shouldn’t be. “It should not be rushed… This is a big public issue,” he said. “I think that the townspeople have to weigh in.” He said the public should have at least two weeks notice.

Republican RTM member Peter Black, who is a lawyer, said “this is a major revision to the way we govern this town… It has taken six months for the registrars to come up with these ideas, and then they say you’ve got to approve them right away?”

Hally seemed to understand the larger redistricting might not occur right away. He said the registrar preferred the fourth plan, the one that best equalizes voting districts into roughly 4,000 voters in each of five districts.

One obvious but unstated issue is that the current RTM might not want a re-alignment that would eventually eliminate some of their own positions. For example, the First District’s current voter population in downtown Branford (in blue) is so large that it has nine RTM members and the Third District’s is so small (in Red, bottom left) it has only three. That would change. The First would lose RTM members, and the Third would gain.

Hally and Burkard noted several times that there were “bare minimums” they would accept. One involved a change in the Fifth District, in the Indian Neck section, and another in the Third, the Short Beach section.

In state and federal election years, Burkard explained, a portion of the Second District in Stony Creek votes not for the 102nd Assembly Representative but for the 98th State Representative, whose district covers Guilford. The 102nd covers the rest of Branford. Burkard said a separate Assembly district for about 116 voters requires an additional set of checkers and other election officials. She wants to move the entire 98th operation out of the 2nd district in Stony Creek and into the larger 5th whose polling place is the Indian Neck School. That would mean Stony Creek voters would no longer vote in their district.

Both Burkard and Hally were especially concerned about the Third District. Burkard said it needed major change. In the last election, she said, “the Third district used one classroom, with one door in and out and that was very very difficult. The new voting equipment required more privacy. What we are proposing there is to move it up to somewhere near Branford Hills School or St. Elizabeth’s Church, for the Third to have a new polling place.” This way, she said, there would be “an easy flow and we could also set it up for privacy for voters. That is the minimum thing we would like to change to help with the polling places.”

Hally said the Short Beach polling place, Orchard House, was too small for voters. He visited the polling operation during the last election, he said. But when RTM member Douglas Hanlon of Short Beach, observed there was a much larger room available within the same building, Hally quickly said the real problem was parking.

Peter Jackson, an architect and former RTM member from Short Beach, said he was adamantly opposed “to moving our polling place. It is important because that is where the community is centered and people are used to it and like it,” he told the Eagle when we caught up with him in the hallway after he left the meeting.

As for the parking issue, he said “there is one person who knows about this voting district and it is me because I sit out there from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at night and there is no parking problem. I poll watch. I represent the Democratic Party. It is rare to have a parking problem, and when it does occur it is because people are talking to one another.”

The next step is the RTM’s Rules and Ordinance meeting this Tuesday night.

Alinor Sterling, the chair of the committee, is an attorney. She stood to tell the group of her timeline concerns and went right to the heart of the matter.

“We are going to have review the proposals… I understand we are trying to bring ourselves into compliance with a state recommendation, but if for some reason we cannot get this done by the July meeting, are we out of compliance with state law. Can we still hold a valid election?

Hally replied: “Yes, you can still hold a valid election. But a couple of things that I would comment on,” he added in what appeared to be a not so veiled threat.

“If we feel that there are polling places that cannot accommodate we have the right, not only the right but the obligation to make sure that there is a valid polling place and that may be out of the district. That is not what we want to do; definitely not what we want to do. However, if it is a case of complying with the law in doing that we will do that; we will make sure we comply with the law because we do not want to disenfranchise any voter.”

There is little doubt that Short Beach will fight to keep its polling place. It is likely the Creekers will too. A 30-day plus deadline may be the undoing of this belatedly presented plan, one based on State “guidelines” and “suggestions.” Halley noted his wished-for deadline: “We have to know by early August. We have to have changes and present them to lawyers so they can do their work. We have to change the charter. Also by law we have to notify every voter that is impacted by this.”

He conceded that was a lot to ask and didn’t offer much of an explanation on why this issue was coming up only now. “We have been working on it for six months but it just takes a long time….”

Too long, the Republican RTM members said. The RTM Democrats offered up little in the way of insight or reaction. Behind the scenes they were incensed by the timing, by the pressure to move their polling places, by the confusion a redistricting would impose in a major presidential election and by Hally’s threat to move the polling place out of the Third.

The Third District is not known for passivity. It is not in its nature or its history. So Hally and Co. are in for a fascinating ride.