With primaries and elections on the horizon across the country, states and towns have had to adapt on the fly to a very fluid situation because of the coronavirus.
Last month, Gov. Ned Lamont pushed Connecticut’s presidential preference primary from April 28 to June 2. While that date could still be pushed back even further, Greenwich is making preparations so residents can cast their votes safely.
Fred Decaro III, the Republican registrar in Greenwich, said his office is involved in a statewide effort to source and collect hand sanitizer and personal protective equipment for poll workers. He noted that polling places will be redesigned so tables maintain about 12 feet of space between them. Traditional polling places in town will remain the same as of now, although there has been discussion at the state level of consolidation.
“We are also greatly reducing the number of poll workers, because we anticipate the volume of folks is going to be pretty low,” Decaro said. “We’re participating on biweekly telephone calls with the Secretary of the State of Connecticut, [Denise W. Merrill], who is working with the Governor to figure out the best way to handle additional absentee ballots.”
Right now, Decaro noted, to get an absentee ballot you would need to qualify as having one of six possible excuses, such as having an illness, disability or being out of town. But Merrill is looking to remove restrictions to make such ballots readily available.
Decaro believes that Connecticut doesn’t have enough time to convert the entire state to vote by mail.
“States that have converted have done it over a multiyear process, and that was with everyone in the office. The idea for us doing it when we’re working remotely is kind of tough,” he said.
Additionally, Democrats and Republicans in Connecticut have received permission from Lamont and Merrill to nominate their State Representative and State Senator candidates by video conferencing. “That’s a significant change,” Decaro remarked.
Petition requirements for those seeking candidacy might be waived since doing so could be unsafe, but Decaro said “everything is just discussion at this point.”
For the fall elections, Decaro said he thinks they’ll follow the same protocol that’s being laid out for the scheduled primary in June.
Decaro is encouraging Greenwich residents to go to greenwichct.gov/vote for pertinent information regarding upcoming elections, important dates and voter registration.
“What people should do right now is go online and check their voter registration information and make sure they’re registered in the party they expect, because that’s one of the oddities about these primaries; many people may have voted a certain way for many years, but may not realize they’re registered in a different party. It’s too late to fix that in some cases, so people need to be checking that now,” he said.
Also on the site is a helpful link which details “25 Things You Can Do Online From the Registrars of Voters Webpage” so no visit to Town Hall is needed.
Overall, the switch to working remotely has been easy for Decaro, Democratic Registrar Mary Hegarty, and the office staff.
“We already had remote access set up for half of the office, so it wasn’t that big a deal for us to move our operations online. I have a little mailing center in my house. We pick up the mail in the office, we process it from our homes, and then I take everybody’s print jobs and print them out and mail them from my house. Last week we sent out about 150 pieces of correspondence, no problem,” Decaro said.
Information at greenwichct.gov/vote is expected to be updated often as the coronavirus situation continues to change.
