Exit poll, Wards Two and 22

Meanwhile, in far-off New Haven
    By Ben Smith

Last Tuesday afternoon at Isadore Wexler School on Dixwell Avenue, a dozen tired election workers bided their time while voters trickled past. For many of the people staffing the polls, it was just a job. Veteran election worker Phyllis Jones, who had come out of the school to smoke a cigarette, shoved her hands into the pockets of her worn Kansas City Chiefs jacket and admitted that it was a pretty boring work day. In other years, she said, "they had a drill squad, a band, everything"; this year, the only action came from three high school students leafleting for the ill-fated Republican Secretary of State candidate Ben Andrews.

The voters, however, weren't bored. In a low-turnout city, in a nation of non-voters, only the truly faithful come out for midterm elections. Like believers whose religion is being questioned, many of the people who voted in Ward 22 and at the Goffe Street fire station in Ward Two took offense when I asked, "Why did you choose to vote today?"

"I'm a citizen; I need to vote."

"Voting is a civic duty."

"It's my right as an American. I feel that I have to vote."

"If I don't vote, I can't complain."

"It's an honor to vote. My ancestors fought for it."

At first, I was disappointed in these answers. I thought I had asked a difficult question, but most people had easy answers. Skeptical of abstract reasons for voting, I looked for other explanations.

Maybe those who came out on Tuesday were attached to a particular candidate. But of the dozens I interviewed, only one voter cited a candidate as a reason to vote. Virginia Henry, who, like most voters, has been "doing it for years," was unique in even mentioning Democratic gubernatorial candidate Barbara Kennelly. More often, I got blank looks from voters (including a few off-campus Yale students and, at Ward 22, a few from Morse and Stiles) when I asked, "Is there any candidate you are particularly excited about?"

Maybe it was President Clinton, LAW '73. Most of the voters in Wards Two and 22 were black, and the national media has reported great support for Clinton among African-Americans. Yet only two people cited the pres-ident's troubles as a reason to come to the polls. One man said he hoped his vote would help "keep Clinton in office," while an irate Ida Tyson said that what she'd really like to do was "go down to Washington and straighten them all up."

What about party loyalty? In an overwhelmingly Democratic area, some people, like town clerk Stanley Rodgers, have real faith in the party: "The Democratic party is the best party for poor people to vote for." But more voters agreed with the woman who told me resignedly that she hoped to "keep that Democratic crap in office."

Like the faithful in many American religions, most of these believers in American democracy were middle-aged or older. In fact, many of the older voters didn't need to justify themselves at all. When I asked, "Why did you choose to vote," a few commented indignantly that they'd been voting since before I was born, and a fierce old woman in a wheelchair barked by way of explanation, "I'm damn near 80, and I've been voting since I was 21." Another woman put it more mildly: "It's a habit—it's something that happens when you get old." Most often, however, voters gave short, wise answers that were intended to be self-evident. As one woman told me, "It's my duty. It's my right."

By 8:30 p.m. at the Goffe Street fire station, the polls were closed and most of the election workers had gone home for the night. Jeanne Hogan, the moderator, was finishing a long day of checking addresses and chasing Ben Andrews leafletters outside the legally mandated 75-foot radius from the polls. Ready to take the ballots downtown, she straightened a pile of forms and expressed her pride in "those of us who still believe in democracy."

Faith and habit. They go together, and for many, the two aren't really that different. While a few voters championed causes or candidates, while a few stood by the President or the Party, the vast majority of voters in New Haven voted for the same two reasons that many would go to church on Sunday. Only true believers, in God or in Democracy, have such good answers to questions that begin, "Why?"

The scene at Dixwell appalled Shawn Whelan, an Australian voting for the first time in the United States. The bored workers and sparse voters were "almost incomprehensible" to a man from a country where voting is compulsory, apathy punishable by a $50 fine. For my part, I was happily surprised to see that a few people, at least in New Haven, feel like citizens in a democracy.

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