Wednesday, November 3, 2010

IT'S ALL POLITICS; A DAY AT THE POLLS

I don’t follow politics as often as I should. Especially during midterm elections when all I’m really thinking about are my midterms. Before a day full of class and work, I got up while it was still dark outside to check out the polls for the first time on Election day. What I learned: if you want to be a journalist, be prepared to get rejected.

Polling site 10982, one of SoHo’s polling centers, is located at the Children’s Museum at 182 Lafayette Street between Broome and Grand streets. At 8:00 AM, temperatures outside were frigid.

It was weird to walk into the colorful museum for children that was turned into a makeshift poll site. I felt like it was a trip to the DMV, with multicolored walls. A tri-fold describing how to vote using the new system stood by the door, however, no one paid any attention to it.

There were six people present upon my arrival. I introduced myself to one of the poll workers right away as an attempt to get some quotes. She had a loud and raspy, but surprisingly chummy, voice that you wouldn’t expect to come out of such a gruff-looking woman. She told me that I could get as many quotes as I wanted and would even give me a picture “for my newspaper.” Referring to the new vote scanner she said, “Would you look at that machine? It looks like an industrial garbage can. $50,000.”

A woman named Pat, (she wouldn’t give me her last name) came over to me on a power-trip and said that I couldn’t ask any questions and I couldn’t speak to voters. A female police officer guarded the door so I couldn’t even get voters on their way out.

Instead, I observed the people coming in and out. It took about 10 minutes from start to finish to vote. Thirty-six people voted between 8:00 and 9:00 AM. “SoHo is light,” said one poll worker. “It’s not as heavy as others.” Fifty people came in between 9:00 and 10:00 AM. This site seemed to get many people who appeared to be 55 and older as well as the handicapped. Some voters had their children with them. Schools were closed for the day. Others were accompanied by their dogs.

I heard people chatting about the new polling procedures as they exited. New doesn’t always equal better. “I like the old way better,” said one man. “I was used to it.”

“Things are too small on the ballot,” said one older-looking woman. “The lighting was horrible.”

While waiting for his wife to vote, one man chuckled, “There was a third side? I never turned it over.” Tweet This

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