Memori votes for Kamala Harris. As dozens of children lined up to drop ​“ballots” into a ​“ballot box” in a Newhallville-based kid election, 9‑year-old Memori cast a vote for Kamala Harris, while 11-year-old Syair cast a vote for Donald Trump.The issue most on their minds? Tax policy.“I heard that she was going to bring taxes down,” Memori said of Vice President Harris. ​“So people like my family don’t have to waste so much money on groceries.”“I think Trump’s policies are better,” Syair countered. ​“He’s going to bring down taxes.”As a steady trickle of Newhallville-based adults cast their ballots inside Lincoln-Bassett School, Syair, Memori, and other kids enrolled in after-school programming at Harris and Tucker School participated in their own mock election outside the polling place.They were joined by a few other neighborhood kids as well as children at Hope Child Development Center on Olive Street.The mock election was organized by Harris and Tucker Principal Kim Harris as well as Ward 20 Democratic Party Co-Chair Barbara Vereen as a way to introduce kids to the voting process — and the importance of civic participation — long before they are eligible to cast a real ballot.In preparation for the event, Vereen had transformed a cardboard box into a mini ballot drop box and printed out copies of the very same ballots used by registered Newhallville voters.While most kids had filled out their ballots ahead of time, a few grabbed pencils to vote on the spot, before lining up to officially cast their ballots.According to Vereen, about 75 kids voted over the course of the day. She plans to announce the results after the polls close at 8 p.m.Most of the children said they voted for Kamala Harris.“Donald doesn’t want kids to learn things,” said nine-year-old Gianna, who said she voted for Harris.“Me too, I voted for her!” another kid called out.“I told all of them to vote for the girl,” said another.Meanwhile, Genesse Skinner stumbled upon the kid election — and quickly returned to the polls with two of her kids, 11-year-old Jace and 10-year-old Ava, so that they could participate.The siblings cast diverging votes. Jace said he voted for Trump because ​“he was already president,” and because others in his family are Trump supporters. Ava said she voted for Harris because ​“she’s a nice person.”Skinner wanted to make sure they learned about the importance of using their right to vote ​“no matter who they vote for” — because ​“we didn’t have that way back when.”The kids also had a chance to meet local, state, and federal politicians including Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers, Attorney General William Tong, soon-to-be State Rep. Steve Winter, and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy.Harris focused on Murphy’s gun control advocacy while introducing him to her students. ​“We told them you stop bad people from shooting kids,” she said.“That’s the biggest thing I work on,” Murphy said, noting that all kids deserve to be safe.He received a chorus of input and feedback from the children.“I think we should have cameras around the city,” said one student, ​“like my family has at home.”Finally, the children accompanied Principal Harris as she cast her own ballot.Harris introduced the kids to the various poll workers — ​“These guys are the bosses,” she said of the moderator and assistant moderator — while explaining new vocabulary words like ​“tabulator” and ​“the voting booth.”She showed them how she went about filling out her ballot, but reminded them that everyone’s vote is ​“secret” (unless they choose otherwise).She showed the group how the ballot tabulator counts the number of votes submitted that day. Her ballot, cast at around 3:15 p.m., was number 749.Principal Kim Harris. The adults who passed through Lincoln-Bassett on Tuesday were a mix of dedicated annual voters and residents who came to the polls for the first (or almost first) time in their lives.Neighborhood activist Shirley Lawrence, who said she votes in every election, cast a proud vote for Kamala Harris — citing prejudiced comments from Trump and funding for government programs as her main motivators.“It’s for our daughters and our grand-daughters,” she said.Xavier Miller Sr. said he voted for the third time ever on Tuesday.A security guard supervisor who works in Long Wharf, Miller had previously voted for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.He didn’t vote in 2016, he said. ​“I usually don’t really think my vote counts.” But by 2020, he had decided that he didn’t want any more years under Trump.Between his “‘grab her by the pussy’ comments” and the fact that ​“he made people storm the capitol,” Miller concluded that Trump was ​“dangerous to the people.”Prior to Tuesday, Miller did his research about the election, primarily relying on Fox News.He ultimately cast his vote for Harris, though he said he thinks of her as ​“the lesser of two evils.”Monique Geyer, who works at the American Job Center, voted for the first time in her life on Tuesday.She was torn between Harris and Trump for a while. ​“Neither one is my cup of tea,” she said.“What tipped the scales for me,” she said, was the potential for a Trump presidency to include defunding the Department of Education.She cast her vote for Harris in support of ​“funding public schools.”“I was a nervous wreck” thinking about voting, Geyer reflected. But she was surprised to find that ​“it was really easy!”See below for earlier versions of this story, including interviews with Morris Cove and Beaver Hills voters.Morris-Covers Vote On Democracy, ImmigrationRafael and Oakleigh Folks, with kiddo Felix: “We want to preserve for Felix the right to vote." Giuseppe Passeggio (right), with son Matteo: ”For the last four years it’s as if we haven’t had a president.” Five for Harris; three for Trump; one for Stein; and one for Nobody. And everyone, it seemed, offered a different reason for their vote.That was the scene and result of an hour’s worth of rapid, random interviewing of ten voters leaving the Morris Cove Ward 18 polling place at the Nathan Hale School on a bright and sunny Election Day Tuesday morning.That approximate 30-percent-for-Trump vote in the tiny ten-person Indy sample actually echoes the 30 percent the former president received in the ward in 2020, said State Sen. President Martin Looney, as he himself voted and exited the polling place.Looney reported that from the hour of the polling site opening at 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., 472 Morris Covers had voted. He termed that a solid number, given that many people already had utilized early voting.According to the Registrar of Voters office, Ward 18 has 249 registered Republicans, compared to 1,327 registered Democrats and 911 unaffiliated. Citywide, there are 58,405 registered voters in New Haven as of Tuesday morning: 36,546 Democrats, 3,343 Republicans, 17,932 unaffiliated, and 584 registered with third parties.Looney said he was guardedly optimistic about a positive Harris result. Below are some of the exchanges on reasons people offered for their voting decisions. (See below for interviews with Beaver Hills voters at the Hillhouse High School polling place earlier on Tuesday).Team Harris: Both Yale neuroscientists, Rafael and Oakleigh Folks agreed that ​“We want to preserve for Felix [the couple’s cute one-year-old baby] the right to vote as he chooses 17 years from now.”In addition to preserving democracy, which was Rafael’s main reason to support Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Oakleigh cited Republican Donald Trump’s promise to put Robert F. Kennedy, a spreader of anti-science ideas, in charge of the nation’s health policies; that was another potent reason to vote Harris, she said.Robert Hawke, a life coach, said he was of the unpopular opinion that President Biden (along with his veep) had done a really good job as president. She knows how the world operates, he said, and as someone who believes strongly that the U.S.’s unconditional support of Israel needs to change, he feels Harris will move in that direction if she’s elected. He also cited a fear, verging on terror, of more democratic norms being undermined if Trump prevails.Elizabeth Pabon has been teaching Spanish at Wilbur Cross High School for 33 years. ​“What Trump says about immigrant, Latino people” is what she offered as a primary reason to vote against him and for Harris.But she also likes the idea of a woman as president. A woman would be a slower, more deliberate, ​“better decision maker,” she said.Anne Demchak — a long-time manager, until retirement, of the Whalley Avenue Stop & Shop, and current board member of Fellowship Place — was also an ardent Harris supporter passing out bumper stickers and Democratic swag to interested voters.At church this morning the gospel was ​“love thy neighbor,” she recalled. ​“That means everybody. We, all of us, including businesses, need different kinds of people with different views. “The moral and ethical reason,” she said is primarily why she cast her ballot for Harris.Team Trump: A woman, who did not want to give her name but said she was registered as a Democrat and is a life-long Morris Cover, explained her Trump vote in a single word: the border. ​“Too many illegals who are not vetted are coming through,” she said. And she also cited the economy.She also felt personally strongly negative about Harris. ​“I don’t like her personality or her policies and [as vice president] she didn’t do anything.”Giuseppe Passeggio and his 7‑year-old son Matteo said they both favored the former president mainly out of dissatisfaction with the Biden-Harris tenure. ​“They’re horrible on the border and the economy,” he said. ​“Things were much better between 2016 and 2020,” Giuseppe added. ​”For the last four years it’s as if we haven’t had a president.”A Vietnam War vet who asked to remain anonymous cited support for veterans as the chief reason he cast a Trump vote. He also said he trusted Trump to bring back more industries, such as oil, and he was firmly against illegal immigration.Sixteen of his relatives also served in all branches of the United States armed services except for the Coast Guard, he said. His parents ran a bakery in Wooster Square after they immigrated, legally, he added, from Italy in 1900.Team Stein: ​“I have no faith in either,” said Sean O’Brien, a long-time Morris Cover and frequent critic of the Tweed New Haven Airport expansion. ​“Trump is a blowhard and a demagogue,” he said, ​“and Harris has not proved her worth. She’s fake and a political opportunist.”Asked if he’s concerned about the spoiler potential of his vote, O’Brien replied: ​“I care about real progressive values and I want to vote them.”He said he’s traveled the country a lot recently and he predicted a Trump victory.Team Nobody: A middle-aged woman racing to her car in the parking lot adjacent to the school declared, with frustration, she simply had had enough (of what specifically she was rushing too much to say) and couldn’t bring herself to vote for anyone for president of the United States.Stein supporter Sean O'Brien: Predicting a Trump win. Cross Spanish teacher Elizabeth Pabon. Sen. Looney, Notre Dame High senior Brandon Skerrit, Anne Demchak, and Ward 18 Co-Chair Roz Chatterton. Election Day Driver Hits The Polls; WWIII-Worried Voter Backs TrumpJanet Brown-Clayton voted for Harris weeks ago -- so she can spend election day helping others vote. 20-year-old Imyre Dasher cast his first ever ballot, for Trump: “I don’t want to be drafted into a war I don’t want to fight.” Janet Brown-Clayton pulled up to the polls at Hillhouse High School Tuesday morning — not to vote, but to help others from her Dixwell Avenue church exercise their hard-won right to the ballot.In Hillhouse’s Crescent Street parking lot, Brown-Clayton said she had already voted two weeks ago for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. She did so at City Hall, on the first day of early voting. Brown-Clayton voted early so as to free herself up on Election Day to give rides to the polls for fellow St. Matthew’s church members in need of transit.She said she started her driving-to-the-polls work at 6 a.m. Tuesday. By 10, she had already brought four people to vote. She said she’d continue her Election Day driving work through 2 p.m.“I wanted to make sure anyone” who wanted to vote had access to the polls on Tuesday, she said.Why did Brown-Clayton vote for Harris?“I refuse to believe America is so dark” to elect Republican nominee Donald Trump again, she said. “People have short memories,” she continued. ​“People forget about Covid.” People forget about his promotion of fringe treatments during the pandemic. ​“Memories are short. Mine is not,” she said.As for Harris, ​“Kindness is pervasive.” She said she’s proud Harris is a woman, and of African descent. But most of all, ​“I’m very proud of the tone she’s taken from the beginning.”Regardless of her thoughts on abortion, Brown-Clayton said, she’s pro-choice. ​“No one has to give an account for what they do with their bodies.”Imyre Dasher, 20, showed up to Hillhouse to cast his first ever presidential ballot — and he voted for Trump.Dasher said he’s never been too into politics, but he’s been reading up on Harris and Trump in the runup to Tuesday.His biggest motivation for backing Trump is that he sees the former president as the true anti-war candidate.“I don’t want World War III to ensue,” he said. ​“I don’t want to be drafted into a war I don’t want to fight.” He singled out the U.S.’s support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion as the most likely international conflict to lead to such a globe-spanning war — and the one he thinks Trump is best equipped to avoid.Dasher said he likes that Trump is a business man, and praised the economy during his presidency. ​“When he was in office, everything was better.”He also said he doesn’t think Trump is racist or anti-LGBTQ or even anti-abortion. All Trump did on that latter issue, Dasher said, was send it back to the states.“You can tell when someone’s racist,” Dasher concluded. And he doesn’t think Trump is.Dasher said he’s not sure how Harris would lead the country as president; he knows he doesn’t like the direction the nation and world are heading in under Biden; and he thinks fondly upon Trump’s first term.How does he feel having cast his first vote ever? ​“I feel like an adult,” he said with pride and a smile.Outside Hillhouse. Former Alder Jill Marks: “When we fight, we win.” Reginald Slade gathers petition signatures to rename Riverside after legendary local educator Wanda Gibbs.