by Mona Mahadevan The New Haven independent
Mike Lawlor was able to vote in person on Monday — even though he’ll be on vacation in Vietnam on Election Day.
Lawlor cast his ballot on the second floor of City Hall, on the first day of early voting in the Nov. 4 general municipal election.
Lawlor — a criminal justice reformer, professor at the University of New Haven, and member of the New Haven Board of Police Commissioners — was one of 48 New Haveners to vote early at the City Hall polling place as of 1 p.m. Monday. For the first time this year, the city has two early voting sites: one at City Hall and one at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU).
Lawlor, who lives in Morris Cove, views Tweed New Haven Airport as “a big issue” in Ward 18. While noise pollution from airplanes is inevitable, he said, completing the airport’s expansion into East Haven could both address excessive traffic in Morris Cove and represent an economic boon to East Haven.
For the contested elections, Lawlor said he voted for three term incumbent Democrat Mayor Justin Elicker and endorsed Democratic alder candidate Leland Moore, who he first met many years ago, when Moore served as legal counsel for the state Board of Pardons and Parole.
The ability to vote early “made it a lot easier” for Lawlor to vote while going on vacation, since he didn’t have to apply for an absentee ballot. He views early voting as a “great addition” because, he said, “the more people that vote, the better.”
Lawlor expects his trip to Vietnam with his husband to feel “cathartic.”
“I missed the Vietnam draft by one year,” said Lawlor. When they go, he’ll “think about the experience of young Americans over there,” as well as the fact that the country has “turned itself around and been an economic powerhouse.”
Vietnam is just the latest stop on Lawlor’s worldwide travels, with destinations including the U.K., Sweden, Italy, and Tunisia.
As of Monday afternoon, 61,713 people in New Haven are registered to vote. Of those, 38,007 are registered as Democrats, 3,796 as Republicans, 19,288 as unaffiliated, and 622 as other.
Also at City Hall on Monday, another early voter, a Yale staff member who declined to share her name with this reporter, said she too was voting early because of vacation plans. “I didn’t have time to be informed,” she said about the municipal election. “I just came by to cast a vote for Mayor Elicker.”
Early voting on Monday began at 10 a.m. and runs through 6 p.m. Those are the hours that the two early voting locations will be open through Nov. 2, with the exception of Tuesday, Oct. 28 and Thursday, Oct. 30, when early voting will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Connecticut’s first election with early voting was the April 2024 presidential primaries.