The window of opportunity to apply for an absentee ballot has come and gone in most towns. But some municipalities are allowing voters to come by town hall to get everything done at once. And in an effort to limit risk of the coronavirus, New Haven voters could brave the weather Saturday and apply for and cast their absentee ballots outdoors.
Gertrude Lerman wore sunglasses and a leather jacket as she pushed her walker to the base of the stairs outside New Haven’s Hall of Records. She’s a 104 years old and she came to vote.
“Well, I’ve been wanting to do it, it’s been very difficult for me to get here, but I managed,” Lerman said.
On her way downtown, Lerman saw her neighbor Carol Hollander. She offered to join. Hollander filled in an application as Lerman sat on her walker and dictated her information. After a few minutes, staff from the city clerk’s office came outside with her ballot. And in the 40-degree October weather, Lerman cast her vote in the 2020 presidential election.
“First time I voted, I just got my license,” Lerman recalled, “and I voted for Roosevelt.”
New Haven City Clerk Michael B. Smart set up the operation to allow voters to apply for an absentee ballot, fill it out and drop it in the ballot box all at once. Smart said he was seeing voters who were nervous about the system or would have had trouble otherwise getting to the polls.
Smart said his efforts were paying off, “because it’s probably not even 1 o’clock and we’ve probably had about 250 votes so far.” He expected hundreds more on Saturday and Sunday.
Some voters were driven by friends or family, like Yason Muray, who was voting for the first time.
“Feels kinda great, like literally just turned 18 this month,” Muray said.
He registered and applied for an absentee ballot this month, too. And he was not sad to say goodbye to what it means to be politically underage.
“And we had to like, sit here and watch people make choices for us,” Muray said.
But this year, Muray could make his own choices: how to cast his ballot and who would get his vote.
Ali Oshinskie is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Ali covers the Naugatuck River Valley for Connecticut Public Radio. Email her at aoshinskie@ctpublic.org and follow her on Twitter at @ahleeoh.
