Council Action—

Middle Gate Voters Move To Edmond Town Hall Polling Place

By John Voket

Maybe diamonds are forever, but local polling locations are not, according to Democratic Registrar of Voters LeReine Frampton.

The town official, who also advocated downsizing the current polling setup into a two-district system as a Charter Revision commissioner, hailed Wednesday’s council vote relocating one problem-plagued location to Edmond Town Hall.

While she eventually hopes to consolidate all town voting into a single, centralized polling place, Ms Frampton told The Newtown Bee after this week’s council meeting that relocating Middle Gate School voters to the town hall gym is a step in the right direction in terms of protecting children’s safety and enhancing handicapped accessibility.

“I think it will be 20 years before we see every Newtown voter coming together at one polling location,” Ms Frampton said. “But getting us out of Middle Gate goes a long way toward eliminating a polling place that has multiple concerns.”

During her presentation to the council in anticipation of action on the matter, Ms Frampton explained that ultimately, students’ security and safety was the driving motivator toward proposing the relocation to Edmond Town Hall.

“Normally, the outside entrance to the school is locked with a buzzer to get in, but on Election Day that door can’t be locked,” she said, adding that the natural flow of pedestrians from the Middle Gate parking lot encourages entry to the front of the building, instead of the polling location located in the gymnasium, which has its own entrance.

“This is an issue that is concerning registrars across the state,” she said. “I think we are moving toward separating voting and schools altogether in the coming years. Everybody is safety-conscious about protecting the students.”

Currently, at all applicable polling places in Newtown and elsewhere, workers need to have access to toilet facilities in the school if they are not directly accessible to the polling place. That means in those locations, poll workers may occasionally have to mix with students.

“I think in those cases, especially in big schools, school personnel would have trouble differentiating between poll workers and voters walking into or through the building, even for a short distance,” Ms Frampton said. 

At Middle Gate, she said parking is already difficult, but during prime bus and parent traffic periods the handicapped parking section is temporarily limited or blocked off. 

Head O’ Meadow School, the other local elementary school polling location, has exclusive entrance to the cafeteria, which Ms Frampton said is far from the main entrance.

“It is also very easy to restrict access into the school from that polling place,” she said. “It’s in a more isolated section of the building as well, so the voters will not be able to gain access to the rest of the school from the polling place. Even the parking section is segregated from the rest of the general parking lot.”

Council chair Will Rodgers said he was pleased with the outcome.

“The move to Edmond Town Hall seems like a user-friendly outcome all the way around,” he said following the meeting.

Mr Rodgers said it was a good move for the registrars office to propose the first vote at the Edmond Town Hall location for the February 5 Presidential Primaries.

“In context, this will not only be the first of these primaries on this date in Connecticut, but Presidential primaries are traditionally among the least attended voting opportunities,” Mr Rodgers observed.

Ms Frampton said the move to Edmond Town Hall harkens back to times when that facility was the hub of town activities.

“It’s been years since people voted at Edmond Town Hall,” she said. “But thanks to the new handicapped access, it will be a good place to relocate the Middle Gate voters.”

Newly elected councilman John Aurelia, who is sight-impaired, told his fellow council members the new location is a much better choice for handicapped access. He then recused himself from voting on the matter out of concerns of a conflict of interest because his wife, Karin, is the Republican town registrar.

Council representative Patricia Llodra, who voted against the measure, said she saw the Middle Gate relocation as a temporary solution, and wanted to see a townwide initiative to centralize and get polling places out of the elementary schools .

“My pitch was holding on until the town could address the bigger issue, perhaps a more centralized location at Fairfield Hills or elsewhere based on thorough research of the matter,” she said after the meeting.

“It’s difficult to change polling places, and this polling place is quite distant from those voters geographically,” she said of the town hall. “But there is no appropriate public building in their district.”