Scenes From The Polls: Kids Count In Newhallville

(Updated) Shamar Sheppard peered up at Jazmine Williamson, a clipboard and pencil in hand. ​“Did you vote today?” he asked. ​“Who did you vote for?”

Sheppard was one of five young pollsters outside Lincoln-Bassett School at noon on Tuesday, surveying voters in Newhallville’s Ward 20 about how they cast their ballots in the contested mayoral and alder races. 

He was joined by second and third-grade classmates of the Harris and Tucker after-school program, who each took turns approaching voters and gathering data on the ward’s results. Principal Kim Harris stood right beside them, encouraging them to push through shyness and hear directly from their neighbors.

Ward 20 is one of six wards in the city to have a contested Democratic primary for alder on Tuesday. Citywide, Democrats are heading to the polls to pick between two candidates for mayor: two-term incumbent Justin Elicker and former federal prosecutor and legal aid attorney Liam Brennan. See below for more stories from the polls on Tuesday, including in Fair Haven’s Ward 15, Morris Cove’s Ward 18, and the Hill’s Ward 6.

At Sheppard’s question, Williamson smiled. ​“I voted for Mr. Elicker,” she said.

Sheppard drew a swooping check mark under the name ​“Justin Elicker” on his worksheet.

At Harris’ prompting, Sheppard looked up at Williamson again. ​“Did you vote for alder?” he asked.

“Yes I did,” replied Williamson. ​“I voted for Brittiany.”

Under the name ​“Brittiany Mabery-Niblack,” Sheppard drew another check.

“I love that you’re doing this,” Wiliamson told Harris. ​“This just warms my heart.“

After speaking with Williamson, Sheppard officially had two data points for each race; the other voter he’d spoken with had voted for Liam Brennan (Elicker’s mayoral opponent) and Addie Kimbrough (Mabery-Niblack’s alder opponent), putting the results of his survey so far at 50 – 50.

As the two alder candidates rushed to introduce themselves to the voters who trickled by, Harris gathered the kids together.

“They are asking people for their votes,” she explained. ​“They’re saying, ​‘Go Line A, go Line B!’ ”

Harris routinely takes kids who have election day off from school to the Ward 20 polling place, showing them how she fills out her ballot and introducing them to the candidates present. For the last several election days, she’s taught them how to survey voters, an introduction to data collection about their neighborhood.

“The goal is to get them acclimated young to voting,” she said. ​“I want them to get used to their community.”

By around noon, just over a hundred people had voted at the polling place.

The kids encountered a number of neighbors who didn’t want to say whom they voted for.

“Remember, we talked about this, how some people may want their vote to be private,” Harris advised them. She added a makeshift ​“private” column to Sheppard’s survey.

When one 81-year-old Newhallville resident walked into the polling place where she’s voted for decades, she heard some unexpected news: her name wasn’t on the list of registered Democrats.

May, who asked to be identified only by her first name, said she votes every year as a Democrat at Lincoln-Bassett School. She takes pride in being a familiar face at her local polling place. She’s owned her Newhallville home since 1985. She raised her kids and grandkids in the neighborhood. ​“I’ve been a Democrat all my life,” she said.

May believes that when she renewed her driver’s license at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in September 2022, the DMV must have re-registered her as an unaffiliated voter.

According to Democratic Ward 20 Co-Chair Barbara Vereen, May was the fifth person that morning to have discovered at Lincoln-Bassett they were no longer registered Democrats after having recently gone to the DMV — an unusually high number, Vereen said.

“This is interfering with my right,” said May. ​“Why didn’t they tell me, ​‘Did I want to be a Democrat?’ ” The DMV did not respond to a request for comment by the publication time of this article.

Political Peace On A Sunny Sidewalk In Fair Haven

Erica Rodriguez and Isiah Miller aren’t supporting the same candidate for Ward 15 alder — but that political difference didn’t ruin their afternoon. Or even force them onto opposite sides of the street.

Instead, they stood side by side, smiling and talking in the afternoon sun as they pitched prospective voters, and got to know each other, outside of a Chatham Street polling place where one of the city’s most closely contested Democratic primary elections will be decided come 8 p.m.

That’s the election for alder for Fair Haven’s Ward 15. Six-term incumbent Ernie Santiago and youth violence prevention worker Frank Redente, Jr. both successfully petitioned onto the Democratic primary ballot after the neighborhood ward committee split its votes at July’s convention — meaning that neither candidate emerged with a party endorsement. The two have been actively campaigning for months, with Santiago calling in local legislative colleagues and union allies and fellow elected officials to bolster his bid for reelection as Redente and a team of his supporters have gone door to door to door to door throughout the ward making a plea for change.

On Tuesday at around 1:45 p.m., Redente and a dozen campaign’s supporters — all wearing red t‑shirts with white text reading ​“Ready for Change and Accountability” and ​“Frank Redente Ward 15 Alder” — had tables and tents and campaign lit at three of the four corners at the intersection of Chatham and Rowe Streets, near the polling place at 197 Chatham St. Santiago and family and friends and neighbors and New Haven Rising union supporters were stationed at one of those same corners, similarly passing out campaign lit and calling out to drivers and walkers as they made their ways to the polls.

According to Ward 15’s polling place moderator, 147 people had cast their ballots out of a total of 829 eligible voters as of around 1:50 p.m. Tuesday.

Unlike at the other campaign spots at Chatham and Rowe, where each candidate and his supporters appeared to keep their distances from one another, Rodriguez and Miller stood side by side in the open sun on the Chatham Street sidewalk just west of the polling place’s entrance.

Rodriguez, who lives on Spring Street in the Hill and whose sister is married to Santiago, is supporting Santiago. Miller, who lives in Ward 15 on Poplar Street, is supporting Redente.
​“I’ve known Ernie for years now,” Rodriguez said about why she was campaigning for the incumbent. ​“He has done a lot for the community.”

Miller said he’s backing Redente because ​“of the activism he does at night” through his work with the Connecticut Violence Intervention Program, reaching out to young people around preventing violence and ​“gang outreach.” ​“There’s too much violence,” among young New Haveners in particular, Miller said. He said he’s inspired by Redente’s push for a more ​“purposeful” life for New Haven youth.

On the other side of Chatham Street, Santiago found a brief respite in the shade alongside Pastor Victor Gomez. ​“I’m feeling good,” Santiago said. ​“The people I talk to, they like me.” He said he’s proud of more ​“speed bumps” and ​“hardly any blight” in the neighborhood after his nearly six terms in office.

“He make a good job,” Gomez said in support of his friend. ​“He works for the community.”

Santiago said he hopes to win another term in office. Either way, he said, ​“we’ll know at 8 p.m.”

On the opposite corner of Chatham and Rowe, Redente stood alongside campaign supporters Maria Olmo, Erick Gonzalez, and Tamiko Jackson-McArthur, all past or present Fair Haven residents.

Redente said he and his supporters ​“claimed” the Chatham-Rowe corners at 3 a.m. Tuesday. ​“We’ve done extensive groundwork,” he said about his campaign. ​“I know my own doors.” Time and again, he said, he’s heard concerns from Ward 15 residents about ​“quality of life” and ​“eyes on the street.”

Each block’s needs and challenges are a little bit different, he said. Ferry Street has ​“open-air drug users” and sales, while other areas have more ​“general crime and violence.”

He said he’s well positioned to represent Ward 15 on the board based on the connections he’s made and knowledge he’s accrued over the course of a whole life living in Fair Haven, and across his many years of working with at-risk youth. Jackson-McArthur said that one of the biggest reasons why she was out in the sun backing Redente on Tuesday was exactly that: he has ​“fresh ideas,” and he’s ​“lived all his life” in Fair Haven.

This campaign is not meant as a personal attack on Santiago, he said. ​“It’s politics.”

Traffic, Schools Drive Voters To The Cove

The atmosphere was relaxed but passionate at the Ward 18 polling police at Nathan Hale School Tuesday morning where a tent for incumbent Alder Sal DeCola was set up at the eastern end of the school parking lot and one for challenger Susan Campion was at the western end.

After casting their ballots, voters exited from a door roughly halfway in between. Their remarks touched on topics ranging from water pollution to speeding cars to noise control to flags at schools, as they explained why they were backing DeCola or Campion.

That was the scene at Ward 18’s polling place for Tuesday’s Democratic primary election. There are two local races on the ballot for Ward 18 voters: the mayoral race between two-term incumbent Justin Elicker and challenger Liam Brennan, and the aldermanic race between six-term incumbent Sal DeCola and challenger Susan Campion.

Elizabeth Baiden and Michael Johnson have known Campion, they said, for a very long time. They voted for her primarily, he said, ​“because she’s a true neighbor. She’s got honesty and passion, she’s for the neighborhood and the neighbors,” he said.

On specific issues where they’d like to see action, Johnson said the traffic on Townsend is speeding and out of control, demonstrating the city’s ​“lack of concern for young children.”

“There’s also the preservation of our water,” and she feels the city doesn’t pay enough attention to the area and has let the Cove and especially its waters be ​“a dumping ground.” She cited as proof of lack of concern, for example, that the city does not list a harbor master on the municipal website. ​“The city is letting people desert their boats in the cove, they sink, and they’re still there.”

The couple also both voted for two-term incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker, but their draw to the poll was clearly their friend Susan Campion. ​“It’s so exciting to see people energized, even desperate for change,” said Campion, who was spending the morning hours under the tent. ​“They want change in general, respect, to be heard, not to be isolated and ignored by the administration.”

Over at the other end of the parking lot, incumbent Sal DeCola was holding court with old friends. Among them Anthony DeBiase, a Marine and a now retired head of security for the New Haven Public Schools. ​“I was born a Catholic and a Democrat,” he said, offering that he voted for Elicker (the opponent Liam Brennan is of course also a Democrat), but there was no discussion further about religion.

Instead DeBiase was peeved as he pointed to the flagpole in front of the adjacent school, which for at least a decade has had no flag. ​“The church has a flag, the Coast Guard base has a flag, the school doesn’t. That’s my beef,” he said ​“The principal doesn’t have an interest in fixing it. There’s an internal mechanism,” he said, and he ought to know as DeBiase was chief of security for the schools for 20 years, and once the system on the poles breaks, flags don’t go up.

“Sal brought it to the school board’s attention,” DeBiase said, and even though the fix is not yet on the way, ​“Any time I need something, I call Sal.”

That kind of personal service in fact was the reason DeCola said he thinks he’ll prevail and why people are voting for him: ​“My work of the past 12 years will show progress, getting things done.”

Asked to point out some examples he’s brought of DeCola mentioned the recent noise abatement legislation along with many things in the pipeline, including the renovation of the bath house at Lighthouse Point Park and the fortification of the Pardee Sea Wall.

Indeed, that message, ​“Sal Delivers for Ward 18” is the pitch on the DeCola signs that lined many peoples’ lawns from the highway down Townsend Avenue to the polling place, far outnumbering the Campion signs.

A Campion supporter said in passing, when this was pointed out, ​“Signs don’t vote.”

Another perspective was offered by Santiago Estrada and Valerie Drake, a young couple recently moved from Ward 17 to Ward 18 and in the area for five years. 

Their focus was on the mayor’s race and both their votes went to Justin Elicker. Estrada cited progressive policies like better bike lanes, which are important to them as well as the addition of more homeless shelter resources, especially out in the Route 80 area, near the Walmart, the Quinnipiac Meadows area of the city where, Drake said, they are really needed.

Liam Brennan, however, was the choice for mayor of Sam Tolkin who brought his three-year-old Oliver with him to see how voting is done.

With a wife who is a school teacher and a young son who’s in pre‑K at the Nathan Hale School, it’s perhaps not surprising that education was his main issue. ​“Liam is the first politician I’ve seen whose main point is education. It’s not sexy. He and Elicker don’t have that many differences, but Liam is more emphatic, supportive. He’s got the chutzpah to say how important education is.”

Then there was the elephant in the room, or the parking lot: the Tweed expansion saga, which Tolkin was alone among interviewees to discuss. ​“Liam is less for Tweed expansion [than Elicker],” he said. ​“I mean we can’t stop it, that’s capitalism, but he is watching it more carefully.”

And that was a major reason this young father also cast his alder vote for Campion. ​“She also stands for keeping Tweed in check. No flights after ten or before six? That still goes on.” But he’s relying on a change in aldermanic leadership for the ward in order to make sure such promises are kept. ​“That’s Sue.”

Regarding DeCola, Tolkin said he had been contacted several times by DeCola supporters but at the end of the day ​“I didn’t know what Sal stood for,” he reported. ​“I was just told he’d fight for my issues.”

But Tolkin wanted something beyond that and Campion got his vote.

Barbara Casts Her Ballot For Democracy

With thoughts of her enslaved great-grandfather and her disenfranchised Cherokee grandmother front of mind, Barbara Dozier cast her ballot at Roberto Clemente Academy in the Hill Tuesday morning to do her democratic part in the city she was born and raised in.

Dozier was one of 41 registered Democrats in Ward 6 to vote at the polls by 10:15 a.m. Tuesday in the Democratic primary for mayor between two-term incumbent Justin Elicker and challenger Liam Brennan. The polling place moderator at 360 Columbus Ave. said there are a total of 1,037 eligible voters in the ward in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.

Dozier — who grew up on Dewitt Street and moved back to New Haven to live in a co-op on Liberty Street to be closer to family in retirement — declined to tell this reporter who she voted for Tuesday. She did say as a hint that she’s ​“pleased with what’s going on in New Haven” and that that influenced her vote on Tuesday. 

Why did she decide to come out to the polls in a municipal Democratic primary with only one race on the ballot, at least for her ward?

“It’s always important to vote,” Dozier said. ​“My great-grandfather was a slave” in South Carolina. She said her grandmother was Cherokee and was barred for much of her life from voting. Dozier said she votes in every election she can in part because of that understanding that previous generations in her own family were prohibited from casting ballots, and because she recognizes just how hard-won the right to vote is for many in this country.

Also at Clemente on Tuesday morning was Zachary (who declined to share his last name), a twentysomething who works at the Yale School of Medicine and lives on Olive Street in Wooster Square.

Zachary biked down to Clemente to vote on Tuesday — his first time in his three years that he’s cast his ballot at the Hill public school.

That’s because a stretch of Olive Street between Chapel and Court was moved out of downtown’s Ward 7 and into Ward 6 — which covers parts of the Hill, City Point, Long Wharf, Ninth Square, and Wooster Square — during the latest once-a-decade redistricting process. While Zachary’s polling place used to be a few blocks away at 200 Orange St., it’s now on Columbus Avenue. Tuesday’s primary marks the first election to be held with the new redistricted ward lines.

Zachary didn’t mind the longer commute to the polls on Tuesday, though he did lament that there was ​“not a lot of signage” on the Howard Avenue side of the polling place.

He said he voted to make sure that his ​“voice is heard” in the primary election. He said he voted for Brennan, after having met him at a few community events this election season. He described Brennan as ​“a good guy who seems concerned about the residents.”

One of the largest single-building shifts thanks to this year’s redistricting process was the moving of the 500-unit luxury apartment building at 360 State St. from Ward 7 to Ward 6.

The Independent spoke with four residents of 360 State as they left their apartment building at around 11 a.m. to ask how they felt about their polling place moving further away, from 200 Orange to 360 Columbus, because of redistricting.

One of those residents said she didn’t have time to talk because she was off to a meeting; the other three all said they couldn’t vote in Tuesday’s election because they are registered to vote elsewhere. Two said that are registered to vote in New York, and one said she’s registered to vote in Massachusetts.

Polls are open until 8 p.m. Click here to read more about whop’s running and why, click here to find out which ward you’re in, and here to find out where your polling place is.