Jayson Readies First Ballot

by Thomas Breen

City staffers Alex Guzhnay and Becky Bombero (right) check in last-minute voters for Same-Day Registration at around 6 p.m.

Get in line; time to vote!

Several hours later, on the second floor of City Hall at around 6 p.m., Jayson Cardenas stood near the end of a dozens-long line for Same-Day Registration (SDR).

Cardenas, 22, said that today was his first time voting. He said that he moved to New Haven from New York roughly four years ago, and that he works for a home remodeling company.

Cardenas said he felt inspired to vote on Tuesday in part because his girlfriend had already cast a ballot. He said he was leaning towards registering as a Democrat, and was still researching the candidates and their platforms.

“I don’t like Fazio,” he said about the Republican candidate for governor. Cardenas said he has seen video clips online of Ryan Fazio speaking at debates, and feels that Fazio occasionally “freezes up” when answering questions.

At the top of Cardenas’s mind on Tuesday was the high cost of living — particularly recent increases to the price of gas and construction materials. He said it’s increasingly hard for “blue-collar workers” like himself to get by.

A few people behind Cardenas stood Colby Lundak, 23, who is originally from Chicago. Lundak said he had been “pushing it off” to vote absentee in Illinois, so he decided to vote in his new home of Connecticut. He said he moved to New Haven a year ago.

Lundak described Tuesday as “an important election” — though the races at the top of his mind were not Connecticut specific. Instead, he was thinking about more closely contested races, like the U.S. Senate race in Michigan, where his parents live and voted.

SDR Moderator Dominic Tammaro said that, as of around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, 628 people had registered and voted at City Hall via SDR. While that number is “nowhere near” as high as during the most recent presidential election, he said, it’s still “a lot more than we thought.”

Tammaro said that, for most of the day, there were 15 to 20 people in line for SDR at a time. At around 3 or 4 p.m., he said, it really picked up. He said that, per state law, anyone in line for SDR by 8 p.m. — which is when the polls close — will be able to cast a ballot.

In addition to voting, visitors to Ward 25’s Edgewood School polling place learned CPR courtesy of the fire department and Yale New Haven …

… and picked up baked goodness at the annual Election Day parents’ fundraiser …

… and Eli Sabin offered his take on DOJ election monitors to Hartford Courant Editor Helen Bennett. Paul Bass photos