Ridgefield Plans Election Day Emergencies

RIDGEFIELD, Conn. - Given Mother Nature’s recent track record of sending serious and unexpected fall storms to Ridgefield, the town's registrars were instructed by the state to come up with emergency election plans.

New guidelines have been drawn up for Ridgefield election officials in case of any kind of emergency.
Photo Credit: *Alissa Smith, file photo*

by Alissa Smith

03/26/2013 3:30 p.m.

The procedures cover a wide range of emergencies that could happen on Election Day, from ballot shortages and voting machine malfunctions to bomb scares and weather emergencies. The goal is to provide guidance for the election officials on duty and to give them resources for dealing with almost every situation.

For example, registrars should be monitoring weather patterns prior to the election day, but the plan has protocols in case of tornado, earthquake, icy/snowy/treacherous walkways and flooding.

In the event of a tornado, for example, the plan says to, “calmly assemble voters and election officials in an internal space away from windows, preferably in an enclosed area.”

Ridgefield’s Board of Selectmen approved the plan at its last meeting and sent it to the Secretary of State’s office for approval.

“Now that we have our plan, we don’t have to use the state’s,” Selectman Maureen Zolark said.

All the appropriate school principals, custodians and the police and fire departments will have a copy of the procedures on file, Republican Registrar Hope Wise said.

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