Politics & Government

What Does it Take to Cast Your Ballot?

Branford's Registrar of Voters is here to get your off and voting in this Nov. 8 election.

On what was supposed to be the last day for Branford voters to register to vote for the Nov. 8 election, Nov. 1, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy issued an executive order to extend the deadline to Nov. 7 at noon as a result of the unprecedented statewide power outages following the . Branfordites, like me, lucked out with a voting extension as well as being one of the very few towns to retain most of its power.

So on Nov. 1, near the end of the day, I strolled into the to finally register to vote after having lived in town for three years and never getting around to it. During the 2008 Presidential election, I returned to my former town of residence to vote because I missed the deadline to register in Branford.

As fate would have it… I was unprepared! In the aftermath of , my husband and I and our gaggle of pets were displaced from our Indian Neck rental. Since moving from our flooded abode, I failed to stop in the and get a sticker to change my address. Tisk, tisk. If you’re trying to register to vote, you better have proof that you live where you live. Before getting a chance to fill out my paperwork presented by the patient Deputy Democrat Registrar Lenora Thomas, I headed out to the car to fish around for proof of residence. I came up with my car insurance card, which did the trick but mail would have worked as well.

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Thomas kindly handed me the paperwork and I was off and running but so were the busy Registrar employees who answered phones nonstop and spoke about voting lists, ballots, verifying ballots, and… whoa… it takes a lot to get ready for an election!

Before serving Branford in the registrar’s office for the last five years, Thomas was the town’s Assistant Tax Collector. Of the importance of her current job, Thomas said, “It’s the people’s choice. It’s their right to vote for who they want to and we give them every opportunity to vote.”

Find out what's happening in Branfordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

This year, Thomas said the office is as busy as usual for a local election and the turnout of people seeking voting registration has been “normal.” To date, Branford has 17,588 of it’s near 30,000 residents registered to vote.  suspects about 40 to 50 percent of those registered residents will actually turnout for the election.

One of the biggest turnouts was the 2008 Presidential Election in which 15,273 registered voters showed up to vote – 78.7 percent of the total amount.

“When we had the presidential election,” said Thomas, “we had a heavier turnout of people.”

For local elections, Kelly offered the highest and lowest statistic she had on file showing that in 2007, 8,892 voters or 49.5 percent of the 17,970 registered voters came out. In the last local election – 2009 – only 33 percent of Branford's registered voters showed up to cast their ballots. The 1983 and 1985 local elections, reported Kelly, were what she believed to be Branford’s best turnout years but the statistics are only available in the Town Hall vault.  

So now that I am registered to vote, I asked the busy bees what they are doing to prepare for elections.

Everyone answered all at once and each answer sounded really important. I decided to go with Dan Hally, Head Democrat Deputy Registrar of Voters, who told me to follow him to the basement to bundle ballots – 11,000 of them.

Hally and Nora Vetrano, Assistant Republican Deputy Registrar of Voters, took me downstairs to where everything for Branford’s seven polling districts is kept. Vetrano has been involved with Branford politics since 1980 and served as a Fifth District RTM Moderator for 10 years. She lays claim to being the town’s first-ever female RTM moderator. In addition to serving Branford's local government, Vetrano has worked the polls for years and has held the prestigious title of poll moderator.

On local election day, she shared, there is a poll moderator, two assistants, one clerk and one machine tender. The staff arrives at the polls just after 5 a.m. and stays long after the last ballot is cast to verify the data. Currently Branford is training part-time employees to work the polling centers. If you are interested, stop by the Registrars Office or check the box that you would like to volunteer when you register to vote.

On election day, Vetrano said the polling centers are “hectic.” Even though it’s been more than five years since Branford moved from five to seven districts, people still go to the wrong polling centers, she said. The assistants and clerks must monitor those coming to vote and answer any questions about the process. With this in mind, Vetrano also noted that Thomas and others  will be at the Registrar’s Office all day on Nov. 8, manning three phone lines and assisting the polling centers locate displaced voters. (Not sure where you vote? See attached polling district street list). Change of name or change of address can become a catch for voters who fail to do so before coming out to vote, added Vetrano.

So down in the basement Vetrano got busy opening the large blue storage cabinets where the polling equipment is kept and Hally started lugging out boxes of ballots and bagging each plastic bound bundle into black gym bags destined for the polling centers.

A man of statistics, Hally said he was confident that he and Kelly had correctly estimated how many ballots to purchase. The ballots are about 40 cents a piece, the Registrar reports, and at 11,000, the town spends $4,400 on your opportunity to chose who runs the town.

In the last presidential election, with the voter turnout more than 15,000 voters, Hally said one polling center temporarily ran out of ballots and he’s hopeful that won’t happen again.

For the past few weeks, Hally and crew have been prepping all 16 of the $7,000-digital voting machines that town has – purchased by the state. He’s run countless test ballots through each machine and finally arrived at the point of verifying and sealing the devises. About the size of laptop, the voting machines sit in their respective polling center lockers, under lock and key and bound by blue plastic zip ties until election day. The town is so prepared that they even have a back-up machine for each center as well as extra pre-charged batteries. “We can actually run the election without power,” said Hally, “and that’s come closer to the truth after the snow storm.”

The Registrar’s Office is open to the public daily until the election if you are interested in registering to vote. You can find more information about the here on Patch or take your participation to the next level and . Also check out the sample ballots per district attached to this story.


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