Some people counted down the days until they got their driver’s license. That was never me. I was excited about being able to vote. My first time voting happened to fall during a presidential election year. This was back when the process involved entering a booth with a maroon — possibly velvet — curtain that reminded me of The Wizard of Oz. It was nearly impossible with this system to write in a candidate because there was no table. There was a dull pencil though. At the time, the town I was in had one polling place, and the line stretched out the door and well into the parking lot, and that was in the 6-7 AM time slot. Since then, I’ve lived in a few different municipalities and moved around within Hartford several times: I’ve seen enough different styles of poll workers, and the curtained voting booths have long since been replaced by something that looks generic and feels unsatisfying, but is far more practical. Aside from a couple of more minor elections, I have voted in every election in which I have been eligible.
So, when I talk about my first experience with early voting, you’re not hearing from someone who is brand new to any of this or needs to be talked into voicing my opinion about who we should hire in November.
Other than when I was able to vote absentee during pandemic elections, my early voting experience was the smoothest one — in Hartford and anywhere else.
In Hartford, our early voting place is right in City Hall, which is where the Registrars of Voters office happens to be. There are signs clearly directing residents there, regardless of which building entrance you decide to use.
I did not go on the first day that early voting was available; I don’t like waiting in lines and expected that the novelty would mean doing exactly that. When I did make it downtown, it was during my lunch time. I figured it would be somewhat busy, and it was.
When I arrived there were a few people ahead of me in line, but after waiting only one minute, I was being helped. Because I knew where I was going and what I wanted to do, I had my ID ready when I approached the desk, which probably sped up the process a bit. The worker greeted me, took my ID, and disappeared with it for less than one minute. When she returned she gave me back my license, and had two pieces of paper in hand. One was an envelope that she asked me to sign and date in front of her. The other was the ballot. She briefly and clearly explained that my next step was to go into the adjacent room and complete the ballot at one of the voting tables. These are the exact same tables as we see if voting on Election Day. The one notable difference was that the pen at my table actually worked and I never needed to dig out the pen I brought with me as back up.
I completed the ballot quickly and followed the directions that I received; I placed the ballot inside the envelope, sealed it, and then walked over to the worker who was in this room. I was in line here for about one minute. I handed her the sealed envelope and she recorded that I had voted. Then, she handed me my sticker (top of the post) and my sealed envelope containing completed ballot, and told me which of the two collection boxes behind me to place the envelope in. These were clearly marked and divided by voting districts.
I was in and out of the building in under five minutes.
Even though there were fewer staff here than I typically encounter at a Hartford polling place, there was a level of professionalism I had not been treated to until this day. I felt confident that each worker knew what she was doing.
No doubt, some of the experience was eased simply by proximity to the ROV home-base. There would be absolutely no excuse for running out of working pens or not having access to voter information.
On the way out, I considered stopping off at the restroom, but I sensed that the wait to use the women’s room would have been twice as long as the time it took for me to vote.
This early voting experience was delightfully free of bullshit. I didn’t have to awkwardly dodge loud people standing around outside with signs trying to get me to vote one way or another. I was able to simply walk in without the usual fuss.
In thinking about the impact this might have, I’m hopeful that people being able to choose when to vote over the course of several weeks may discourage some of the political nonsense like the practice of parties offering voters rides to the polls; by the way, there are now discounts offered for Election Day rides through both Uber and Lyft, and all polling places in Hartford are within two blocks of a public bus stop except for Mary Hooker School on Broadview Terrace and the Dutch Point Community Center on Patsy Williams Way. Maybe when candidates can’t count on the majority of people all voting on a single day they will dial down the poll standing noise and do something more useful for the community like clean up litter.
Besides shining a light on the ease of early voting, I’m sharing this experience because it actually felt to me that the early voting system was more trustworthy than what I see happen on Election Day. This, like voting by absentee ballot, has more safeguards built in. I have a few theories about why this went so much better than every other in-person experience, and I’ll go ahead and suggest it does not hurt being in a high profile location rather than in a school or rec center that seems like it may as well be on another planet from City Hall.
