Melissa Bailey Photo
Asadie Walters staples election results to an electoral college map Wednesday.
Though they may have been too young to vote, 10 Hillhouse students found a way to get involved in Tuesday’s election — and found people “running in their pajamas” and standing in long lines in the cold to reelect their president.
As the polls closed Tuesday, the students from Jack Paulishen’s AP Government class joined a team of New Haven Independent volunteers who spread out to polling stations to collect election results.
A few, including Jordan Ransom (pictured), celebrated a milestone Tuesday by casting the first ballot of their lives. Jordan, who’s 18, showed up at 6:30 a.m. at the Woodward Avenue firehouse with his family to vote. The line looked long. So they went to McDonalds and came back, only to find the line had doubled. Jordan said after he presented his driver’s license to elections staff, they asked him for a second form of ID. He presented a second form of ID — his Hillhouse student ID card — and snagged a ballot.
“It was pretty exciting,” he said of his first vote. He said he voted for Barack Obama and Chris Murphy, in part to preserve federal funding of financial aid for college.
At 7:30, Ransom returned to the firehouse and, over the beeps of firetrucks, recorded the results for the 17th ward.
Many of his classmates couldn’t vote. But they could still play a role.
Across town, Jenadra Harvey (at right in photo) and Trevá Perry (at center), both 16, reported to Newhallville’s Lincoln-Bassett School, one of the busiest polling stations around town. Voters there waited as much as 90 minutes to vote; the line snaked out the building throughout much of the day.
Trevá said she learned a lot about the mechanics of voting — and voters’ perseverance to exercise their rights. One man stayed at the polling place for 40 minutes as staff helped him figure out where he was registered. At the end of the day, Trevá said, she saw voters “running in their pajamas” to get to the polls before the 8 p.m. deadline.
“They were excited to vote and determined,” she said.
Trevá called the evening a “positive experience.”
Jack Paulishen staples a blue New Hampshire to the election results map.
“I’ve never been interested in politics” before Paulishen’s AP Government class, she said. She was disappointed to be too young to vote. “I can’t wait ‘till I can.”
Kenyena Amiker (pictured) said she could see voters streaming to the polls at Hillhouse all day from her house across the street.
“I wanted to vote really bad,” she said. She said she “got to like politics” through Paulishen’s class, and by watching the presidential debates. “It made me want to vote.” She won’t turn 18 until January, however.
She said she was “excited” by her experience collecting election results at Hillhouse.
“I didn’t get to vote,” but by canvassing for Obama, and collecting results on election night, “I feel like I’m doing something to make a difference.”
The Independent would like to thank the following Hillhouse students for their help Tuesday:
Kenyena Amiker
Diasha Dozier
Asadie Walters
Jordan Ransom
Joy Okeke
Jaimisha Via
Brandi Marks
Brandi Fullwood
Trevá Perry
Jenadra Harvey
Also assisting from Co-op High School:
Ariela Martin
Paris McGee
Briona Grant
Rachel Jette
And from Hamden Hall:
Eli Slifstein