Laura Glesby Photo
Robinson: With Alder Furlow’s help, in time for class, as well.
Naszier Robinson arrived at City Hall at 6 a.m. to register to vote for the first time ever — and wound up on an hours-long journey back and forth between downtown and his Westville neighborhood in order to cast his ballot.
In New Haven, citizens can register to vote on election day itself by going to City Hall. That system hasn’t always run smoothly in elections past.
This year was Robinson’s first election as an eligible voter, and he got up early with his cousin to register at the start of the day.
The printers were broken for 20 minutes, he said, before he was able to successfully register.
Voters who register on Election Day have to cast their ballots in a separate room inside City Hall, instead of their neighborhood polling places, as their wards won’t have their names listed as registered voters.
But rather than being pointed to the designated room down the hall, Robinson said he was told to vote at his Ward 27 polling place, three miles away.
So Robinson went home and met up with his mom to vote in-person at Mauro-Sheridan Interdistrict Magnet School. He waited in line there for an hour and a half, he said, only to hear from the assistant registrar there that he had to return to City Hall.
Robinson, a student at Southern Connecticut State University, had to get to back campus in time for a class. So Ward 27 Alder Richard Furlow personally drove Robinson back to City Hall to vote.
“I felt bad to have to see him miss such an important election,” Furlow said.”
“It was disappointing,” Furlow said of the snafu. ”We need our best crew out there because you have new voters coming in. For him to be sent to the other side of town…”
Robinson said he voted for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. He had watched both presidential debates, he said, and was particularly eager to vote because he believes that Joe Biden will support Black people more than Donald Trump has.
Despite his convoluted experience this morning, Robinson said he wasn’t deterred from participating in future elections.
“I’ll definitely vote again,” he said. “It was good to have a say in what’s going on around me.”
Dear god I hope one of the third-party candidates for Registrar wins this year; it'll be a bit more money for the city but worth it for the invaluable opportunity to show the incumbents what responsibility means. The current registrars (one re nominated by the DTC, and both guaranteed by state law to win back their seats -- way to go, Democrats!) couldn't manage a lemonade stand.