Election 2021

Poll Worker Removed from Post at NCHS After Reports of Irregularity [UPDATED]

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A poll worker was removed from the polling place at New Canaan High School Tuesday morning following reports that she’d been instructing people on how to vote, officials say. The volunteer poll worker had been standing near the sign-in table at NCHS telling electors to “only vote for four” candidates, according to Alyssa MacKenzie, vice chair of the New Canaan Democratic Town Committee. MacKenzie identified the poll worker as Allison Totaro. She was reassigned within the polling place at about 11:48 a.m., MacKenzie said. This year’s most closely followed contested race is for the New Canaan Board of Education, where six seats are up for election, including five four-year terms and one two-year term. 

Four of the six seats currently are held by Republicans, two by Democrats. 

The GOP has four candidates on the ballot, while the Democrats have six. 

Totaro is a registered Republican, according to Connecticut Secretary of the State records.

Election 2021

Election 2021: New Canaan Hub [UPDATED]

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[Note: Unofficial election results are here.]

UPDATE Dec. 22

Joshua Foley from the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission told NewCanaanite.com that the agency didn’t launch an investigation into the above-referenced matter because no complaint was lodged from any election official. The SEEC typically starts investigations as a result of complaints from the public or based on referrals from agencies such as the Secretary of the State, Town Clerks or Registrars of Voters. “We were informed of the event when it happened on Election Day, but it didn’t rise to the level of an official complaint from any election official, so as a result there’s no investigation,” Foley said. UPDATE 5:15 p.m.

Town Clerk Claudia Weber said she has received a total of  1,065 returned absentee ballots.

Election 2021

Election 2021: NewCanaanite.com Endorsements for Board of Education

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“As I said last spring, the spring of 2020, I think this is an extremely important initiative for our nation and our community. I also think that there’s a lot of really bad ideas around it. Very dogmatic ideas. And they tend to use a vocabulary of their own making. And their terms that are very loaded, there are very well-developed bodies of thought behind them that have been developed in academia.

Board of Education

Board of Ed Candidates Debate Curriculum Development 

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Candidates for the Board of Education this week debated whether changes should be made to the process through which curriculum long has been developed and approved for New Canaan Public Schools. As it is, a team of educators led by the superintendent—known as the Curriculum Leadership Council or “CLC”—draft, continuously review, update and approve curriculum so that New Canaan’s schools are meeting educational standards set by agencies such as the Connecticut Department of Education. The Board of Ed receives regular presentations on curriculum—a practice that has slowed amid the COVID-19 pandemic—and in cases of large-scale changes to those standards, the school board dedicates even more time at its meetings to corresponding decisions such as new classes or updates to the district’s goals and objectives. While Republican candidates for the Board of Ed said they’re not advocating for public meetings of the CLC (such as through appointment of a school board member to it), they called during Tuesday night’s League of Women Voters debate for the ability to weigh in on its development earlier and with greater detail and frequency than the elected body currently does. “I think that what we are pushing for is more oversight, more balanced thoughtful oversight at periodic stages,” GOP candidate Dan Bennett said during the debate, held at Town Hall.

Claudia Weber

‘We Are Swamped’: Town Clerk Sees Dramatic Increase in Absentee Ballots Issued for Nov. 2 Election

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A rapidly increasing number of New Canaan voters are requesting and filing absentee ballots for the municipal election, according to Town Clerk Claudia Weber. Asked about the activity since absentee voting opened Oct. 1, Weber said, “The first two weeks of the month it was very, very quiet and now all of the sudden it has picked up dramatically and we are swamped.”

As of midday Wednesday, a total of 546 absentee ballots had been issued, and Weber said she expects to issue more than 1,000 overall—a “much greater” number than in a regular local election year, she said. “In a normal municipal election, pre-COVID, we usually issued less than 200 absentee ballots,” Weber said. It’s unclear whether the high number is also a measure of overall interest in the election.