Heavy Voter Turnout Reported in Brooklyn Heights

By on November 2, 2010 2:25 pm in Election 10

Photo: T.K. Small


Voters visiting urban polling places, including here in Brooklyn Heights, are reporting heavy turnout by voters early in the day.

The Huffington Post: By 9:00 a.m., there were already 132 voters at a polling place in north Brooklyn near Borough Hall, which Politico’s Maggie Haberman calls “an impressively high number that early in the morning for a midterm race.” HuffPost reader Tim B. in Brooklyn Heights also reported that when he voted at 10:30 a.m., it was “more crowded than I have ever seen it. … It’s gonna be crazy tonight!”

HuffPo also reports some difficulties with the new voting system, as described by a reader from Williamsburg. Reports from Erie, Pennsylvania and Chicago also tell of higher than expected turnout. If this pattern holds nationwide, it could bode well for Democrats.

Share this Story:

  • lcd

    Things went pretty smoothly this a.m (8:00, Cadman Pl. West) – between 15-20 people lined up to sign in. The bottleneck at the sign- in tables was the tearing out of the perforated ballot. Why this is such a delicate operation, I don’t know. Can’t they just hand you one? I think they’re sequential and have to match the number on your card. This could really slow things down, but not too many people, so I was in and out in ten minutes or so.

  • AEB

    [As reported earlier on–yes!–Facebook:] At my polling place on Cadman West and Middagh I was the ONLY one voting at around 3:00 this afternoon.

    After the scanner did its thing, and “Congratulations! You’ve Voted” flashed on its screen, a (toothless) worker there clapped me on the back in celebration. Real family-like.

    I noted that people received a legal-size folder in which to tuck their ballot, for secrecy. But there’s the moment when one is loading the ballot into the scanner at which it’s nakedly visible to anyone in proximity….

  • T.K. Small

    This afternoon I voted at the Pierrepont Street poll site. After my nightmarish experience during the September primary, I was not optimistic. However, everything worked much better today and I was successfully able to use the Ballot Marking Device. The main difference was there was a poll site coordinator who actually knew what they were doing.

    Although I posted this link earlier, if you’re interested in reading about my awful voting in experience goto page 5 of the link below.
    http://tinyurl.com/oct25accessiblevoting

  • Homer Fink

    AEB – i must have just missed you this afternoon … i was voter 183 at the CPW location… Joan Millman walked in as I was leaving… i figured saying hello would be electioneering errr sumthin’! … not to give away my secret ballot but Voting Was Too Damn Easy!

  • AEB

    Homer, I’m surprised there were 182 voters before you.

    Yeah, voting WAS easy as one–I–just stayed true to my school, column-wise.

    Though I must say that darkening those circles took more effort than I wanted to exert. And took me right back to high-school dining-room exams, horror of horrors!

  • nabeguy

    I kind of miss the old voting booths…as decrepit and unreliable as they were, they had nothing on the Board of Election “volunteers” that manage the polling places. Honestly, where do they find these people? I don’t recognize any of them from around the nabe, although I think I saw some of them in a George Romero film. In any case, I had no problems casting my vote at 140 Cadman Plaza at around 5:30 at a poll that was completely devoted to the 123rd district (versus 250 Cadman Plaza, which seemed to cover about 10 districts) Snarkiness aside, this was one of my better voting experiences, and the vols actually were enthusiastic about the new system. My only complaint is that the postcard that I received from the BOE incorrectly directed me to the Clark Street Synagogue, and that, as of today, the BOE website was still posting the polling site for my address as PS 8. I can’t say whether there’s a nefarious plot at the bottom of this kind of shell game, but I wonder if everyone has the patience to go from place to place to exercise their constitutional rights, especially our elderly population.

  • bornhere

    I now vote at Borough Hall, and I must say that the second-floor location is really beautiful, and quite an improvement over the Municipal Building; but venue aside, it sure was dark and moody in the room. Some friends complained that the font was too small on the ballot; I thought the size was okay, but trying to read it in a really dimly lit room (I voted at 6:45 on my way home from work, so there was no daylight help) in the even darker confines of the enclosed podium thing was not too easy. If a voter weren’t prepared and had to actually read the thing, I could see it being a problem.
    My wait was minimal (I was #268), and the only time-consuming aspect was waiting while the poll worker slo-o-owly filled out the card thing.
    And, nabe, I miss the old booths, too. I mean, in what other context does an average person get to manipulate a gigantic, magic lever?

  • since47

    Voting at 101 Clark was easy and fast, after voting in the Primaries on Water Street, which bordered on nightmarish, because nobody really knew what they were doing ‘back then.’ But the people today were patient and helpful, and the long lines moved quickly – my entire time there was under 8 minutes. I agree that the print was too small, and suggested that they have some sort of lights attached to the voting tables to help in reading the ballot. And I know that having wheels on the tables makes them easier to move around, but as I was filling in the little ovals, pressing hard and being as neat as I could be, I realized I’d moved the table about a foot, had to ‘lasso’ it and bring it back. But oh how I miss the voting booths, which made it more fun to vote in a way – I always felt like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. And if you made a mistake with a lever, you could always undo it before pulling the bar and casting your votes, instead of being embarrassed and asking for another ballot, which happened to a couple of voters while I was there.