A steady trickle of voters arrived this morning at the War Memorial gym, which as recently as Saturday had served as a shelter for those displaced by superstorm Sandy. By the time polls opened at 6 a.m., about 25 people were already clustered outside, officials said.
A handful of campaign volunteers for the Roraback and McLachlan camps milled around the entrance to the gym – one of seven polling sites situated across the city – greeting voters as they filed inside.
“Everybody’s out. It’s young, it’s old. We’ve had first-time voters,” said poll site moderator Eileen Coladarci. “I gave my first civic lesson of the day.”
Inside, girl scouts from Troop 50621 performed the time-honored Election Day tradition of peddling their cookies to voters as they were walking out, their civic duties fulfilled.
By 8:30 a.m., about 500 people had cast their ballots. And while a few voters were turned away because they hadn’t registered, the whole process hummed along without any major hiccups. Several people stopped to explain their voting rational to a reporter, citing issues like job creation and government overreaching.