Wilton Registrars: Election 2012 A "Perfect Storm"

With news of the 2012 elections dominating headlines, Wilton’s registrars of voters are doing everything they can before the Nov. 6 vote to encourage as many people as possible to turn out and cast ballots. They’re hoping there will be higher voter turnout and much less voter confusion over where to vote as they saw during the August statewide primaries—even though they’re facing additional challenging factors.

Calling the situation a ‘perfect storm,’—it’s a presidential election year; there are hotly contested statewide races; redistricting has caused changes in where some voters’ will vote; and several Wilton poll locations have changed as well—the registrars are trying several ways to get a message out to voters.

“Double-check where you vote,” urged the Democratic registrar, Carole Young-Kleinfeld.

In advance of the November election, they’ve taken extra steps to get the word out. This week and next a banner will hang in Wilton Center. “It says ‘Voter Alert’ in big letters and adds, ‘Check Your Polling Place’ with the website or with our phone number to call us if they’re not sure,” Young-Kleinfeld said.

Voters should have also started receiving a postcard in the mail this week, detailing where their specific polling place is and the date of the election. Even though they did two separate mailings with similar information over the summer, the registrars hope this third reminder will be more eye-catching.

“It tells them what district they vote in—if they’re in the 143rd or the 125th, it gives them that information as well. It’s a larger card in red, white and blue so we hope it will capture their attention,” Tina Gardiner, the Republican registrar explained.

Their push to increase voter awareness also included outreach at the senior center, Kiwanis Club meetings, and Stop and Shop, as well as at Village Market on National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 25.

The impact of redistricting and polling place changes

Redistricting happens every 10 years after a census, as federal law mandates that voting districts need to be reviewed and redrawn to ensure the population is represented accurately, equally and fairly, in Congress and in the state legislatures. That means a voter’s district can sometimes change.

“Every state is going through this same thing, and Wilton did get a significant amount of change in the size of our house districts, which affects our voting districts,” Young-Kleinfeld explained. “We think it’s a change for the better, once voters get used to it.”

The registrars have tried to make it easy for residents to check where to vote on the registrar page of the town’s website, simply by entering their street and address. Voters can find sample ballots for each district and also verify their voting status—whether they’re registered and in what party—on the site as well.

Not only did redistricting cause confusion for some Wilton residents, but changes this year in the actual locations where people cast their ballots added to the mixups some people experienced during the primaries.

One spot in town was used for many years as a precinct but is no longer. “We’ll have signs at Miller Driscoll school saying that it’s no longer a polling place,” Gardiner said.

Moreover, at two of the polling locations voting will be in a different space than where it held was during the primaries:  At Wilton High School (District 1), voting has moved from the Clune Center to the Field House across Kristine Lilly Way; and at Middlebrook School (District 3), voting will be in the gym rather than in the cafeteria. Voting at Cider Mill (District 2) will be held once again in the school’s gym.

A push for voter registration

Gardiner and Young-Kleinfeld stepped up efforts to register as many voters as possible. They registered more than 80 students by going into the high school before the primaries. By maintaining a presence around town and making information available on their website, they tried to encourage more voters to register. But despite their best efforts, they haven’t yet hit the same numbers this year as they did in 2008.

They do acknowledge that there’s still time before Nov. 6. Voters who want to cast a ballot in the November election have until Oct. 30 to register if they are haven’t yet done so.

“We got at least 1,000 new voters in the last three months leading up to the 2008 election,” Gardiner said. “We registered 33 new voters yesterday, and that’s a lot.” She also added that the numbers of total registered voters are definitely increasing, and higher than six months ago.

One thing they wish they saw more of is the younger generation getting engaged in the voting process. “Lots of parents come in concerned about their children, making sure that the child is registered to vote and getting an absentee ballot, almost to the extreme. They are adults and they need to take responsibility for themselves,” Gardiner said.

Echoed Young-Kleinfeld, “Let’s put it this way:  It’s refreshing when we have a young person come in to speak for themselves and say, ‘I would like to register to vote.’ It is wonderful to see that, but we don’t see that enough.”

The registrars also wanted to make sure that voters knew that, by state law, curbside voting will be available at all three polling locations, for anyone physically unable to come inside to vote.

“We have to rely on someone to come in and alert us that there’s a voter outside who can’t walk in. So two election officials from different parties will go outside, check identification and bring them a ballot and privacy folder. Then those two officials both make sure the ballot gets into the machine,” Young-Kleinfeld.

Of note, there will be a national exit poll conducted at Wilton’s District 1 by the national election media pool—CNN, ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS and the Associated Press.