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Hundreds wait four hours to register to vote in November.
New Haven’s Democratic registrar of voters says one answer to the city’s election problems may lie on Yale’s Old Campus.
As part of a broader examination of how to address problems that have left voters waiting hours to cast ballots (among other failures), Democratic Registrar Shannel Evans said Tuesday that she’s talking with Yale about the possibility of moving the Election Day Registration (EDR) operation from City Hall to the Dwight Hall building on the university’s Old Campus at 67 High St.
Evans noted that most of the people who seek to register and then vote on Election Day are Yale students. Southern Connecticut state University (SCSU) voters tend already to come from here or to vote in other towns, she said.
She said she wants to look more closely at parking and other questions to see “whatever makes it more efficient for the electors.”
Click here to read a story by the Register’s Mary O’Leary more fully exploring the EDR options and the work of an Election Day task force.
Secretary of the State spokesman Gabe Rosenberg said the office hasn’t yet heard from New Haven’s registrars about their ideas for improving how they conduct elections. Evans said she plans to reach out to the office.
A proposal before the state legislature this past session, House Bill 7160, would have allowed cities to operate more than one EDR site on Election Day. It passed the House. But it failed to pass the Senate on the final day of the session. Current law limits cities to one EDR location.
“It was held up under a Republican threat to filibuster it on the last day. I don’t know why they selected that one to talk to death. We had bills lined up in the queue we were trying to pass,” so the voting bill had to be put aside, State Senate President Martin Looney said Tuesday.
State Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano countered that the Democrats waited until the last day of the session to raise the bill, at which point it’s too late to consider proposals that require lengthy debate. Fasano said he had concerns about several aspects of the bill, including portions that would expand the secretary of the state’s office and facilitate voter registration at Department of Motor Vehicles offices.
“They could have called the bill on Monday. They could have called it on Tuesday,” rather than on Wednesday, the last day of the session, Fasano said. “Any bill they don’t like, they wait until Wednesday, then they blame us.”
Registrar Evans said she’s still looking at the Yale Dwight Hall alternative even without the passage of HB 7160, as a replacement for the City Hall EDR location rather than as an addition.
"New Registrars" should have been a polling choice!