Voter Frustrations Felt at Board of Directors Meeting

Many Manchester voters' attempts to express their right to vote was marred by long lines, confusing signage and a difficult ballot sheet last week.  Several residents immediately got on the phone to call the members of the Board of Directors to complain and seek help. 

Director John D. Topping, who voted at the High School, said that he spent almost an hour and a half waiting to vote. "I gave up my spot in line a few times," he said and cited poor signage which led to people repeatedly wait for long periods of time in the wrong check-in line. Director Rudy C. Kissman questioned the amount of people working the polling places, "Was it enough?' he asked.

To prepare for the most recent election, during which 22,661 Manchester citizens voted, Registrars of Voters Francis Maffe and Tim Becker reviewed the turnouts from the last four presidential elections. In addition to using popular media strategists, they predicted that 82 percent of Manchester residents would vote on Election Day.

"Mid-to-part way through the day we got concerned," Maffe said. Afraid they would run out of ballots, they ordered 5,500 paper ballots to be printed and distributed to the sites as a precautionary measure. Only 710 ended up being used.

Maffe cites several issues that led to a perfect storm on Election Day, starting with Hurricane Sandy, which pushed out the voter registration deadline to Nov. 1.  Similar to nationwide trends, Manchester also registered a huge of amount of new voters just prior to the election, about 1,600 between Sept. 1 and Nov. 1.

"The real logjam was the checker table," Becker said, echoing the sentiments of many voters like Ken Burkamp.

"The town needs to do something about the voting," he said. "There was no uniformity. To me it was totally unprepared."

The ballot itself was also blamed for some of the confusion as many voters weren't familiar with dual party endorsements, such as was the case for Sen. Chris Murphy and candidate Linda McMahon.  About 630 ballots had to be redone because they were considered as "spoiled," or done incorrectly. Usually, Manchester sees about 60 spoiled ballots in an election like this one.

At the top of the list of issues was that voting districts have been recently reduced from 10 to eight, as well as reorganized.

"Some of the [new] districts were enormous," Maffe said. "The redistricting was the biggest downfall for the voting," he said.

The 5th District alone captured 5,000 voters. Many voters complained because they were driving across town to vote.

"We had too many elderly and too many handicapped standing for too long," Deputy Mayor Jay Moran said. "There were people who came to the high school twice and could not vote."

Becker and Maffe told the Board of Directors that prior to the presidential election they will consider these measures: the addition of another check-in table at some of the larger districts; additional and improved signage; the addition of a greeter; and in a "worst case scenario, redrawing the lines for districts 5 and 6," Maffe said. 

"People across the country were waiting in lines. It's not just Manchester," he said. "To West Hartford, we look like heroes."