{news} New Haven Advocate "By Any Greens Necessary"

[Tim McKee]

http://newhavenadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:85496

 

By Any Greens Necessary
Calvin Nicholson takes a crack at the cushy but essential office of the Registrar of Voters. 

by Dave Goldberg - October 14, 2004 
KATHLEEN CEI PHOTO Calvin's cool.As of last week, 53,286 New Haven residents were registered to vote, and, in some sense, they all owe their place on the voter rolls to Sharon Ferrucci and Rae Tramontano, the respective Democratic and Republican registrars of voters, the golden girls of town politics. 
"We've both been here for 15 years," says Ferrucci. "This has always been run as a nonpartisan office. It's hands-on dealing with the public, and our job is to make sure the elections run fair." 
"It's what I do best, and it's what I love to do," adds Tramontano. 
On Election Day, each casts her ballot for the other. 
But their oasis of klatchy bipartisanship is being threatened this year by Calvin Nicholson, a 26-year-old Yale graduate and lifetime New Haven resident, who is running on the Green Party ticket for the Office of the Registrars of Voters. 
Nicholson is Jay-Z to the ladies' Mary Kaye. One of his handouts features a crusading depiction of the black comic-book hero, the Green Lantern. On the flip side, graffiti script implores the reader: Bitch less. Act more. Vote Nov. 2nd. 
A Nicholson victory would be a first for New Haven: There have never been three parties in town represented by a registrar of voters. A Socialist Party member ran in 1953 and lost. 
According to the General Statutes of Connecticut, sec. 9-190, each state municipality is required to have two registrars, one from each major party. Their job is to keep an eye on the other and ensure that voter registration and elections are run fairly. The registrars are also responsible for voter education, keeping track of the voter rolls, maintaining the voting machines and staffing polling stations during elections. It's a full-time, year-round job, and each registrar makes $56,275. 
Registrars serve four-year terms, and the Republicans and Democrats have reserved seats. However, a third party can field a candidate. By law, if that candidate beats one of the major-party candidates, then all three parties are winners. In other words, the major parties keep their seats and the third-party candidate joins them in the office. 
This makes for a perfect race for the Green Party to run, according to party co-chair and Nicholson campaign treasurer Charlie Pillsbury, since no one can blame the Greens for stealing votes from another candidate. 
"Ours is a non-spoiler campaign," he says. "No matter what, the incumbents get to stay. All we have to do is beat the Republicans. And there is already parity between the Republicans and Greens here in New Haven; we're growing and they're shrinking, so there's a real possibility of electing a third party to the Office of Registrar." 
"It would be a big deal for a Green to get a public office, but it's also an office that we can make positive changes in," adds Nicholson. "If I win, I will implement bold and new ideas that are probably not coming from the incumbents." 
Nicholson criticizes the current registrars for being too passive in getting out the vote. He wants to ramp up voter registration, especially, and not surprisingly, in New Haven's minority communities. 
"You have to actively canvas voters and get people to register," he says. "You have to meet the people where they are. I'm talking community forums, going into the schools and explaining how elections work. The problem with the way things are now is that most people don't understand the process." 
Nicholson, who now works as an information technology specialist, also promises to be a sort of technological watchdog. This will be increasingly important as a result of the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which requires all states to have at least one electronic-voting machine in each polling station by 2006. On the national scene, implementation of HAVA has already proved to be quite the bugaboo, what with lawsuits and scandals involving the Diebold company, and, of course, the ongoing Florida flim-flammery. 
Computerized voting makes sense in the 21st century, Nicholson says, but there is also a growing fear that these machines will be susceptible to hacking and other forms of digital fraud. 
"We need some level of expertise in that office." 
The current registrars claim to have no problem with Nicholson's candidacy, but do take issue with his critique of their job performance. 
"What he is proposing to do is part of what we do every day," says Tramontano. "He's reinventing the wheel. We go into the schools twice a year, when we're only obliged by state statutes to go once a year. We go whenever and wherever we are asked. Plus, we train groups [to register voters] constantly." 
Ferrucci says that they also make a concerted effort, through mailings and collaborations with community groups, to reach ex-felons and aid them in restoring their voting rights. 
Tramontano notes that she has some technological expertise of her own. She has served on a state panel to study electronic voting, and she was also a commissioner on the HAVA Standards Board. She says that Connecticut is looking at a lot of different options for future voting and is proceeding cautiously. In any event, the decision as to which electronic voting system will be used rests with the Secretary of State. 
Asked if they would push their desks aside to make room for the third-party registrar, the ladies take a diplomatic tack. 
"If he wins, he'll work along with us, I hope," says Tramontano. 
"Everyone has the right to run," Ferrucci said. "I was a candidate. Rae was a candidate. It's the way democracy works." 







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