Paul Bass Photo
Linda Greenhouse, center, waiting hours in line in 2016 to vote.
When my husband and I moved to New Haven in 2010, one of the first things we did was register to vote. We assumed that voting in New Haven would be the same pleasant, even rewarding experience it had been for the 30 years we lived in Montgomery County, the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Two or three weeks before each election, a sample ballot would arrive in the mail from the county Board of Elections, listing all the candidates and any ballot measures. Polling places were well marked, with reminders to vote posted in visible places. Voters were welcomed by friendly and efficient poll workers. Clearly, the franchise was something our government not only facilitated but celebrated.
Imagine our surprise when none of those things proved to be true in New Haven.
Anticipating our first election, a mayoral primary, we waited in vain for a sample ballot. We did each receive a card informing us that our polling place was the New Haven Hall of Records, a short walk from our apartment.
Arriving at the Orange Street address around eight o’clock in the morning, we were surprised to see no sign indicating that we had come to the right place. We walked up the front steps and found the door locked, without a sign of human habitation.
We knocked for some minutes, finally rousing a man who asked us through the closed glass door what we wanted. To vote, we said. Go down to the basement, he said, pointing to a flight of outdoor stairs leading to the bottom of the building.
Again, there was no sign validating that this was the place to go. We entered and wound our way along a darkened corridor, which finally led us to a room with voting booths and a few poll workers standing around.
After casting our ballots, we emerged unnerved, wondering what had just taken place. Was this some kind of soft voter suppression?
We saw soon enough that what we had experienced was part of a pattern.
When our polling place was changed to the main library, facing the Green on Elm Street, we again saw no sign confirming that this was a place to vote. We walked up the front library steps, only to find that the building was not yet open. Almost by chance, we noticed a small sign on the Temple Street side, pointing to a side entrance to the library’s lower level. There was no one greeting voters inside the door. Poll workers radiated incompetence. The trouble they had finding names on the voter list could be explained only by unfamiliarity with the alphabet.
One once demanded that I show government ID, which Connecticut law does not require. Consequently, I refused on principle to show anything beyond the postcard listing my polling place. A supervisor had to intervene to tell the poll worker that I was right.
I mention these incidents in some detail because the meltdown that occurred on the day of the midterm election, well chronicled by the Independent, should not be seen as atypical or even, at this point, surprising. Something is fundamentally wrong with the way New Haven conducts elections.
I say this with some authority because back in Montgomery County, Maryland, I responded to a call for volunteers and took the necessary training to be an election judge. I was assigned to a polling place where many new citizens and first-time voters cast their ballots. My job and that of my fellow judges – equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats – was to greet voters, help them through the process, and try to resolve any problems that came up, including dispensing provisional ballots to voters whose qualification to vote at that location was questionable for some reason.
We were on our feet for most of 16 hours, but we worked diligently in our common mission and ended the long day tired but deeply satisfied that we had played a part in something important.
New Haven’s voters should not have to settle for anything less. New Haven’s election officials should visit and learn from jurisdictions that know how to run elections. Elections are not random or unexpected events. They are marked on the calendar years ahead. If a city can’t manage to run an election, how can its residents expect it to be able handle the unexpected events of everyday urban life? This isn’t about partisanship. It’s about citizenship in its most basic form, and it’s on the basics that New Haven is failing its residents.
Linda Greenhouse teaches at Yale Law School and writes a twice-monthly op-ed column for the New York Times as a contributing opinion writer.
Thank you, Linda Greenhouse. C'mon, New Haven! We can do better than this.