West Rock Registration Drive Celebrates Right to Vote

Enjoying music, food from Lucky’s Star Bus Cafe, a Village Drill Team performance, and the lovely fall weather, Lovette Short spent her Saturday afternoon updating her voter registration and teaching her kids about the voting process.

Short, who lives in the Westville Manor development, was one of over 100 West Rock residents to attend a voter registration drive in front of Katherine Brennan School. The event was hosted by Unlock the Vote, Communities & Families Rising 4 Justice, The Brennan-Rogers Family Resource Center, and Ward 30 Democratic Committee Co-Chairs Iva Johnson and Marcey Jones.

Short said she has been encouraging her friends, family, and neighbors to vote this year.

“Voting means a lot. People think that voting means nothing, but people count. I try to tell people even if you don’t think it works, it really does.”

She said she reads the news often to keep up with politics and tries to keep her kids informed as well. Short brought her 9‑year-old daughter and two younger sons up to the registration table with her to speak with event organizers about voting. ​“I want them to know the difference [between politicians] and know when you’re growing up, what you need to do and when you’re a little older, to tell your friends and pass it onto their kids and everybody else’s kids,” she said.

Terence Brown sat down at one of the socially distanced tables set outside the Lucky’s Star Bus Cafe looking to discuss politics with other New Haveners at the event. Brown, who is already registered to vote, said he came to support the event and answer questions about the voting process.

Brown said he follows national politics closely and was also happy to talk with newer voters about what the two parties stand for, without pushing his own personal beliefs. ​“I watch MSNBC and CNN and Fox News. I live it pretty much!”

Halfway through the event, a crew from the Village Drill Team dazzled the crowd with a performance. The steppers filed into formation on the pavement which was covered in sidewalk chalk drawings.

With each drum beat, the crowd enthusiastically clapped and cheered along. 

The registration drive was the team’s second event since the team began in October 2019. ​“Everything we do, we try to do community-based, whether it’s cleaning up in the neighborhoods or just doing whatever we can trying to make the community a better place” said Village Drill Team Director Tayvon Berryman.

The team’s next performance is next Saturday at Edgewood Park for an event about domestic violence awareness.

After the performance, people lined up for Lucky’s Star Bus Cafe’s star dishes and free hotdogs.

Larry Lucky, who runs Lucky’s Star Bus Cafe, said he has been voting since he was old enough to vote. ​“Nowadays, we need more and more people to get involved.”

Lucky gave away 80 hot dogs with toppings of chili and cheese for free at the event. 

“It’s truly a blessing there are so many kids out,” he said,. I think it’s important for the kids to see what the adults are doing becuase we are examples, we are leaders.”

Lensley Gay, site coordinator for the Katherine Brennan School Family Resource Center, said she helped organize the event to ensure more people are engaged in the process of voting and to help people identify their polling places for election day. She said she started thinking about holding a registration drive after the primary election in August.

Last week, Gay and seven other volunteers started going door to door registering people to vote in Ward 30. She said the group is planning to knock on more doors this week to meet the Oct. 27 Connecticut registration deadline. ​“Really, we’re talking about celabrating your right to vote, because it is your right and your privilege to vote.”

During that first week, Gay registered five new voters. Gay said one of the five was an 18-year-old who was excited about being able to cast their first ballot in an election.

“To hear somebody say that makes all my effort worthwhile,” Gay said.

“Actually I can remember when I started voting at 18, and to see somebody follow in those footsteps is wonderful and gives me a sense of accomplishment.”

Lisa Bergmann has been registering fellow New Haveners to vote every weekend and helped with more voter registration at the event. She said she and other volunteers were able to register three people and answered questions about the ballot, how to vote and update addresses for over 20other people.

“If we have enough of our communities that are normally left out of the democratic process voting, we can make a huge impact on the election” Bergmann said.

Along with helping to put together the registration drive, Jones has been working to register a handful of disenfranchised felons.

She told the crowd, ​“It’s all about knowing that in order for us to help our children, we have to help ourselves. So doing what we need to do in our community and being examples for other communities is what is expected from all of us.”

James Jeter who is the co-director of the Full Citizen Coalition to Unlock the Vote spoke at Saturday’s event about voting rights and felony disenfranchisement laws in the state. Connecticut is the only state in the northeast that doesn’t allow people currently on parole to vote which, according to Jeter, ​“locks out” thousands of citizens from voting.

“We’re talking about a population that affects the trajectory of how the state moves and also a population that’s the most vulnerable without a say.”

Jeter said he never thought about voting until he got involved in policy work. ​“I realized, wow man we’re missing something. This thing works and it works in a way that our communities haven’t been told, that we can set our own platforms.”

He told the crowd that even if they don’t like any major candidate, they should still cast a down-ballot. ​“In this country, your citizenship is your voice. That’s all your promised is a voice. You can pursue happiness forever, but you’re given a voice.”

“Look at my mask. What does it say?!” Iva Johnson asked the crowd. ​“Vote!” they responded.

She said, ​“If we don’t vote, we are invisible. And sometimes you feel as though, oh it doesn’t count, but if you vote, you have the power to fix things.”

Lensley Gay addressed the crowd saying, ​“This is not just for you. This is for your friends and relatives to know what they need to do on November third. Everybody say November third!” ​“November third!”

“What do you need to do November third?” ​“Vote!”

“Vote like your life depended on it because it does! You need to vote November third!”