middletowneye

I spent a good part of the day at the high school, not as a reporter, but as a campaign worker. The candidates from each State race where present at some point during the day except Capenera who’s wife stood in for him most of the afternoon.  Joe Serra arrived late morning greeting the many folks he has come to know during his time representing district 33.  After an hour or so he was moving on, and left a few of his lawn signs, so as to keep his presence.  Paul Doyle arrived mid-afternoon, and stayed on site for a good two hours, introducing himself, and shaking hands, meeting and greeting with anyone who was coming or going, or
present at the polling site. Catherine Johnson arrived late in the evening and greeted a much slower trickle of evening voters who arrived at the polling place. This writers bike served as a great sign post for Catherine's presence throughout the day.

Since I did not arrive until just after 8:00 am in the morning I did not see, what I heard was the longest line of the day between 6-7am--with crowd of before work voters. The campaign workers saw a steady stream of voters all day, and made new friends and caught up with older ones. Few voters spent any longer than 20 minutes getting in and out of 

the polling place, the lines moved right alone, and I heard very few complaints. The traffic in the afternoon was better than it was in the morning. Some how, the issue of handicapped parking was overlooked this morning. Many of those with walkers, canes, handicapped plates, and handicapped window 

tags, had to make their way to the poll from a distance much longer than they should have had to. When the handicapped came with a driver they where dropped at the curb cut,

but if they drove in alone, they parked just as everyone else did, determinedly and sometimes quite slowly making their way thru the gauntlet of signs, to the cafeteria—turned polling place. In the morning hours a voter machine snafu, caused some concern for 25 minutes or so, but some how inside the problem was resolved, and our outside world did not hear word of any other problems throughout the day.