(Boris Sanchez)
An Election Day mostly untarnished by major problems made the voting quick and painless for many Onondaga County voters Tuesday.
“Easy going, very nice.” (Abbey DiPlasido, Syracuse University senior)
“It was very smooth sailing.” (Amaury Rivas, Syracuse University freshman)
“It went pretty smoothly. It’s a pretty good experience.” (Thoung Haung, Syracuse University sophomore)
Many of the projected 210,000 to 240,000 voters in Onondaga County went through the polls Election Day without the long waits seen in other parts of the country. Some Central New Yorkers found some votings lines going a bit too long. But they were nothing like the four-hour lines found around Virginia Tuesday.
At the DeWitt Town Hall, McCain supporter Marty Morane says he didn’t mind waiting in line for such an important election.
“It took us about 15 minutes, maybe? It wasn’t that long. It was worth the wait.” (Marty Morane, National Grids service operator.)
Others had similar reactions.
“I just got in, it took 2 seconds.” (Jimmy Zheng, Syracuse University student)
“I expected it to be much busier than it is now.” (Jeff Comanici, 35, accountant, voting at DeWitt Town Hall)
At Nob Hill Apartments polling place, Jeff Crouse complained about glitches with the voting machines.
“They’ve got a new voting machine and they’re trying to read the directions and get on the phone and figure out how to use it. It’s not right—they’ve known for four years that this is Election Day. To me, it’s wrong to figure out how to use the voting machine on election day morning.” (Jeff Crouse)
Some voters had some red tape to struggle with — like…
“I voted four years ago and they just told me they have no record of me doing so. So I have to go get an affidavit from the courthouse over to the Civics Center on the 15th floor. I just spent 10 hours at work and I have to spend another 3 hours in line at the Civics Center.” (Ryan Parnell, Syracuse University student)
For others though, the biggest problem of the day wasn’t much of a problem at all.
“I didn’t get an ‘I Voted’ sticker,” (Joseph Morse, SUNY-ESF Student)
For Democracywise: Zachary Kineke.
(Zachary Kineke is a senior with dual majors in broadcast journalism and political science. Democracywise reporters Racquel Asa and Ashley Pettigrew contributed to this report.)
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