On Tuesday, Americans nationwide will head to the polls to cast their ballots, choosing the next President of the United States — former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris.
Hamden residents will come out in droves to the nine voting sites across town.
“We usually have really excellent voter turnout in Hamden,” said Mayor Lauren Garrett. “I’m sure it will hit 80% in many of our districts and precincts.”
While Hamden itself already has a strong sense of how the election will go within the town — Hamden has a history of strong Democratic voter turnout with President Joe Biden winning by more than 50% margin in 2020— many around the country will anxiously await the results.
“Democrats are going to do really well in Hamden,” Garrett said. “We have strong democratic voter turnout in Hamden, and so I know that Vice President Harris is going to have a really strong victory in Hamden.”
In terms of crowds and long lines, Garrett believes the early voting system will help keep wait times down on Tuesday.
“We’ve already had really great early voting, around 1,000 people every single day,” Garrett said. “So we are plugging ahead and what’s really great is that we’ve had some lines for election day in the past and I think this will really cut down on wait times during election day because of all of the early voter turnout.”
Early voting has been a success according to Garrett, and she hopes that it continues on Tuesday.
“The feedback that I’ve heard has been that the early voting has been really smooth,” Garrett said. “People have had very positive experiences. So as we make sure that people have positive experiences, hopefully they take that back out into the community … we’re all neighbors here, and we need to treat each other with respect and I hope that continues.”
Something new for Hamden residents to look out for that’s different than in years past is new voting machines. Residents are also urged to check their voting location as Hamden redistricted following the recent census.
“People should make sure that they look at the yellow card that they receive in the mail for their voting location,” Garrett said. “Because this is the first national election we get, you know, more turnout and people should just look at their yellow card and make sure they know where they’re going.”
With the upcoming election also comes various security concerns. While Hamden isn’t expecting any issues, it is still preparing for all possibilities to make sure all voters and residents remain safe.
“As far as voter turnout, usually for general elections, such as this one, the presidential, there’s a large turnout,” said Hamden Lieutenant Eric Goclowski. “With that being said, our response, or our showing at these polling stations is usually a mixture of what the mayor’s office wants, the Board of Education, the school superintendent and the registrar’s office.”
There will be an officer at all nine polling locations across the town, with additional officers available as needed.
“I’ve been working with the police department,” Garrett said. “They have a plan for security at our polling locations, and I don’t think we’re going to have any problems. But we’re prepared to make sure that everything runs smoothly.”
In the days after the election, commentators will do their best to inform the public, but the presidential election is expected to be close — too close for them to call before the votes are officially tallied.
“A lot of times in the media, they ignore the margin of error, they don’t take it into account. I think that’s misleading for the public,” said Doug Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac Poll. “The commentators, they just ignore the margin of error and say, ‘Oh, this candidate is leading this other candidate by one point or two points,’ even though it’s statistically insignificant.”
Voting will be available at all nine polling locations from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“Just making sure that at our polling locations everything remains calm, everyone’s right to vote is really important to me and to our team and just making sure that the process runs smoothly is important,” Garrett said.