Voter turnout low despite extended hours

Registrar Jayne Ridgway works on a puzzle while waiting for voters at Cornwall Town Hall.
Provided
Registrar Jayne Ridgway works on a puzzle while waiting for voters at Cornwall Town Hall.
By Riley Klein
With 54.5% of the vote, Matthew Corey has won the August Republican primary for the nomination to run against incumbent Chris Murphy (D) for U.S. Senate this November.
The Associated Press called the race for Corey at 9:46 p.m. after ballots closed Tuesday, Aug. 13.
Across the state, 35,346 registered Republicans voted in the primary. Corey received 19,257 votes and his opponent, Gerry Smith, received 16,089 votes.
In the Northwest Corner, voter turnout was down compared to the 2022 Republican Senate primary despite seven days of early voting in addition to Primary Day this year.
Town Clerks reported 170 total ballots cast in 2024 across the six Region One towns (Cornwall (19), Falls Village (13), Kent (44), North Canaan (22), Salisbury (45) and Sharon (27)). In 2022, a total of 452 Republican voters participated in the single-day primary in the six towns.
Early voting made its second appearance in Northwest Connecticut last week with a Republican primary election between Matthew Corey and Gerry Smith for the nomination to run against incumbent Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) for the U.S. Senate seat this November.
Registrars across the Northwest Corner staffed polling stations for extended hours over the seven-day early voting period. All town halls in the region reported low turnout.
In June 2023, Connecticut passed Public Act 23-5 implementing early voting for general, primary, and special elections. The law provides residents with 14 early voting days for general elections and between four to seven days for primaries and special elections.
Starting for the first time in April, early voting was offered for the Presidential preference primary. The polls were open again the week of Aug. 5 through 11 for early voting ahead of the Connecticut District Primaries on Tuesday, Aug. 13.
Though early voting allows voters more time to cast their ballot, it also increases the time town registrars are in office and strains town budgets. After polling registrars throughout the region, the consensus seemed to be the same: the amount of time allotted is disproportionate to the number of voters.
When a Lakeville Journal reporter entered the voting room at Sharon Town Hall, the registrars were ecstatic at the possibility that a voter might be coming in. “It’s been slow for us, we’ve only had three people so far,” Republican Registrar Barbara Coords said on Tuesday, Aug. 6.
“The shifts are either eight or 12 hours, and three officials must be present – a Democrat and Republican representative and a moderator,” explained Marel Rogers, the Democratic registrar in Sharon. By Thursday, the number of early voters grew to a total of seven.
In Cornwall, the rate of early voters was even slower. On Wednesday, Aug. 7, Town Hall saw its first voter and on Thursday, Aug. 8, a second came in. Jayne Ridgway, the Democrat registrar, reflected, “We’ve finished more puzzles than the number of voters that have come in.” Ginni Block, the moderator in Cornwall, added, “The extra time is helpful, but being open just to have two votes in four days seems like not the best use of state money.”
The “state money” that Block referenced is the Election Grant of $10,500 each town was given for early voting. In practice, the granted amount is not enough to cover the wages of election workers and the cost of supplies. Ridgway recounted, “It got us through April and to now, but for the November election we’ve had to increase the budget by 47%.”
This increase in budget is not just an issue Cornwall is facing. Joe Cleaveland, the accountant in Salisbury stated, “The budget for wages went from $32,000 to $62,000 this year.” He suggested one solution to this doubling in budget money would be to cut down on the hours of registrars, in turn reducing the number of early voting days.
Registrars were receptive to this idea, emphasizing the small number of voters in each town. In Falls Village, Republican Registrar Susan Kelsey pointed out, “We’ve had six voters out of the 129 registered Republicans in the town.”
While Kent had the highest turnout rate by midweek – nine voters across three days – the registrars there also backed the idea of cutting down the number of early voting days.
In an effort to keep themselves busy, registrars across the state are in communication. “We have a Facebook page for the state registrars,” Kelsey said. “The general consensus is that the amount of early voting days offered should be based on city population.” This would mean smaller towns, like those of the Northwest Corner, would hold a few days or a weekend of early voting while larger cities would be open for the entire week.
The August primary offered some early voting practice for town halls, but staffers remain worried about November. It is not the bigger election they are worried about, it’s the 14 days of early voting that is required.
Cornwall, which in 2022 had about 1,150 active voters, is expecting “to get some” early votes cast in November, “but those some will be spread out across the days”, said Ridgway.
The consensus is that early voting is a thoughtful principle for those who are unable to make it to the polls on Election Day. But at the moment, the benefits are running a hard race against the downsides.
Join The Lakeville Journal for a community celebration, featuring local nonprofits and businesses, festive family fun, great food, and engaging activities.
What to Expect:
See you at the Lakeville Journal Street Fair!
If you have any questions, please email streetfair@lakevillejournal.com
Cobbler n’ Cream
5 to 7 p.m.
Freund’s Farm Market & Bakery | 324 Norfolk Rd.
Canaan Carnival
6 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Canaan Carnival
6 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Cocktail Party
5 to 7 p.m.
Douglas Library | 108 Main St.
Canaan Carnival
6 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Boot Drive
8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
North Canaan Fire Co. | 4 E. Main St.
3rd Annual Fly-In
8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Triumph Airfield | 547 W. Main St.
Canaan Railroad Station Museum
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Canaan Union Station
New England Accordion Connection
9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Canaan Union Station
Canaan Carnival
3 to 10 p.m.
Bunny McGuire Park
Berkshire Resilience Brass Band
5 to 8 p.m.
Canaan Union Station
Barbecued Chicken Dinner
5 to 7 p.m.
St. Martin of Tours | 4 Main St.
Canaan Fireman’s parade
6 p.m.
Rosa setigera is a native climbing rose whose simple flowers allow bees to easily collect pollen.
After moving to West Cornwall in 2012, we were given a thoughtful housewarming gift: the 1997 edition of “Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs.” We were told the encyclopedic volume was the definitive gardener’s reference guide — a fact I already knew, having purchased one several months earlier at the recommendation of a gardener I admire.
At the time, we were in the thick of winter invasive removal, and I enjoyed reading and dreaming about the trees and shrubs I could plant to fill in the bare spots where the bittersweet, barberry, multiflora rose and other invasive plants had been.Years later, I purchased the 2011 edition, updated and inclusive of plants for warm climates.
On the cover of the new edition, a quote from Adrian Higgins of The Washington Post boasts, “Michael Dirr is the oracle of ornamental horticulture. I trust his judgements implicitly.”I heartily disagree with Mr. Higgins:I blame this book — and my poor use of it — for some of my worst tree and shrub choices.
I realize some readers might find this declaration inflammatory. The book still occupies a place of high regard among experienced and novice gardeners alike, so please allow me to explain.
In addition to giving the reader his opinion on the aesthetic worthiness of the woody plants included in the book, Mr. Dirr makes good on the book’s title with a review of each species’ hardiness. What makes a tree hardy?It thrives in its intended site, resisting disease with leaves and bark not readily eaten by insects and other critters.
Non-native plants make up the majority of the recommended hardy plants in the book.And here is why:Native trees and shrubs are, by evolution’s design, food source and host to our native fauna — critters large and small. There is no substitute equal to the fauna’s co-evolved flora.A native caterpillar cannot eat a kousa dogwood leaf, as it has not evolved to digest it.Non-native plants seemingly have the advantage if the lens we look through values pristine, uneaten leaves.
In the days when there were sufficient thriving ecosystems to maintain local habitats, a non-native specimen tree here and there was just fine.But where we live in Northwest Connecticut, our woods, meadows, marshes and other natural areas have, for a couple of decades, been severely compromised by invasives that have almost entirely removed the food sources for native insects. It is up to us — now — to plant native plants to save the food chain.Without insects, not only will native animals die, but human food sources will also be at risk.
The security of our food pipeline seems a worthy exchange for some caterpillar-eaten leaves — and to be clear, we’re not talking about non-native infestations such as spongy moth, but rather native caterpillars, which are the singular food source for nesting birds.
My issue is that, in being a trusted source for plant selection, Dirr’s book should give equal — if not prioritized — space to information on ecological impact.For example, it would be good to know when selecting a tree, that a native oak provides food and other ecosystem services to more than 400 native animal species, while a native tulip poplar supports fewer than 30 — though that includes the Eastern tiger swallowtail. Including information on the birds and insects attracted to a given plant would enable reader to weigh these factors in choosing what to grow.But this information is not mentioned at all.
Dirr makes no mention of the role some of these plants have played in the degradation of our natural areas — an omission that is highly relevant, as many of the plants featured in his book are, in fact, invasive culprits. Plants like barberry, porcelain berry and tree of heaven are showcased for consideration alongside native plants without recognition of the devastating infestations they can manifest. Tree of Heaven is now responsible for hosting the spotted lanternfly, which is devastating crops.
Similarly Euonymous alatus (winged euonymous) and Actinidia arguta (hardy kiwi) — two highly invasive plants touted in the book — have been banned or are close to being banned for sale from nurseries in the state of Massachusetts. To his credit, Dirr does point out the invasive nature of Ligustrum sinense (Chinese privet), calling it “a terrible and devastating escapee that terrorizes floodplains, fencerows and even open fields, reducing native vegetation to rubble.” Yet Japanese honeysuckle gets an understated warning, with Dirr describing this massively invasive shrub as “bullying their way into understory and open areas.”
The latest edition of Dirr’s book devotes seven pages of copy and photos to various Berberis species, about which Dirr waxes poetic. He notes the addition of “30 new cultivars” in the latest revision and complains that “this species is under assault for its aggressive invasive nature.” He refers to Berberis thunbergii — Japanese barberry, the most invasive of them all — as “the species of major importance in garden commerce.” This plant has already been outlawed for sale in New York, Pennsylvania, New Hamphsire and Maine.A few weeks ago, a bill was passed in Connecticut recognizing the harm of a broad group of invasive plants. Under this new legislation, barberry will be phased out from sale or transport by October 2028.
In understating the invasive nature of many non-natives and de-prioritizing the importance of native species, Dirr’s widely used reference may be partly responsible for many a devastated woodland, forest, meadow and marsh in New England — if not across the U.S.Certainly, the evolution of species, and scientific knowledge about the environment, is changing faster than new editions of books can be printed. I can only hope that if a new edition of Mr. Dirr’s reference book is in the works that it will account for this criteria we now know to be vital in plant selection.
Which brings me back to that quote on the cover from The Washington Post and the larger issue it suggests:Should “ornamental horticulture” get a pass when it comes to ecological survival?I think we can agree — it should not.The consequences are simply too destructive.
Dee Salomon ‘ungardens’ in Litchfield County.
Foxtrot Farm & Flowers’ historic barn space during UAW’s 2024 exhibition entitled “Unruly Edges.”
Art lovers, mark your calendars. The sixth edition of Upstate Art Weekend (UAW) returns July 17 to 21, with an exciting lineup of exhibitions and events celebrating the cultural vibrancy of the region. Spanning eight counties and over 130 venues, UAW invites residents and visitors alike to explore the Hudson Valley’s thriving creative communities.
Here’s a preview of four must-see exhibitions in the area:
1. Wassaic Project (37 Furnace Bank Road, Wassaic)
“So It Goes” is a powerful group exhibition curated by Eve Biddle, Bowie Zunino, Jeff Barnett-Winsby, and Will Hutnick. The title, drawn from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five,” signals a reckoning with how we process the horrors of the world. Through play, reflection, and immersive scale, 43 artists respond with urgency and imagination. Installations can be seen throughout the town of Wassaic at Maxon Mills, Gridley Chapel, and Luther Barn, each space transformed by this deeply thoughtful show.
2. Foxtrot Farm & Flowers (6862 Route 82, Stanfordville)
“Queer Bestiary,” a group show curated by Charlotte Woolf, is inspired by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian’s book “Forest Euphoria.” The exhibition investigates queer ecology and human relationship to land through the work of 10 artists using painting, sculpture, textiles, and photography. The exhibit is accompanied by a variety of interactive experiences including tattoo pop-ups, karaoke, book readings, and pick-your-own flowers.
3. ChaShaMa North/ChaNorth (2600 Route 199, Pine Plains)
ChaShaMa North (ChaNorth) will have open studios all weekend and has partnered with Paradice Palase, a platform for emerging artists, to mount a site-specific sculpture exhibition featuring 20 artists entitled “Alone, You Are Heard.” On Saturday evening, July 19, stop by for Weird Music Night for an audio-visual synthesis of experimental music, performance art, and unexpected happenings. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience an eclectic lineup of acts that redefine the boundaries of performance.
4. Millbrook Arts Project(3 Friendly Lane, Millbrook)
The Millbrook Arts Project is hosting a curated exhibit entitled “Generated Utility” at the newly renovated gallery at the village library. The exhibit will feature the work of artists Natalie Beall and Kathy Greenwood. Additionally, visitors will have access to 12 open artists studios across town. The weekend culminates in a free outdoor concert on Saturday evening at 6 p.m. at the Millbrook Bandshell. Enjoy the Indie-Folk sounds of Strawberry Runners and She Keeps Bees.
For more information and a complete list of participating artists and locations, visit: upstateartweekend.org