Great Expectations

Every time I come home - even if I leave the house for 15 minutes - there is Knox literature stuffed in my door. He must have diminutive campaign volunteers hiding in the trees...

Brady's people are openly pulling up "Knox for Mayor" signs all over the city and replacing them with Brady signs. A truck driver saw one crew, wearing Brady shirts, pulled over and asked them to stop. They responded "Go f**k yourself!" Smukler's shark stunt earlier and now this. Class act, that Brady crew.

I live in a section of the city that has a lot of rental properties. When my BF (who owns our home) and I went to vote this morning, the poll workers were talking about how there would be heavy voting before work and after work and maybe some during lunch. "Yeah, the locals might come in then," one poll worker said.

I live and vote and pay taxes here. My boyfriend owns our house. I am as local as the family up the street and felt like that comment from a long time resident was inappropriate at the polling place. My vote is equally valid even if I haven't lived in the neighborhood for 50 + years. Maybe poll workers should not be allowed to work in their own neighborhoods.

There were had a lot of Brady signs but no other signs for any other candidates outside of my polling place. Only a Brady poll worker was there when we went in to vote.

Also there was a little problem with the voting machines and they had to be reset. I hope that no votes were lost.

I think that the media coverage for the mayoral campaigns was good. The coverage for other seats and issues was abysmal. It's a joke to tell us to vote on ballot questions or judges when there is no information reported. I do not support judicial appointment (politicians appoint partisan or corrupt judges) so the media needs to step up its coverage of judicial decisions and who supports what judges and why. Maybe if a little light is shown on the candidates we'd have better choices than Seamus and Berry (neither a good choice).

I voted at the Annunciation Church in Passyunk Square and the senior citizen women working the voting site were arguing full pitch while I voted about some kind of card game and someone not being invited. Also, as I was walking in, there was an older guy leaving and the entire back of his shirt was ripped down from just below the collar but he walked by like nothing was wrong...business as usual. The voting part was rather boring compared to everything else going on there. What an interesting experience.

We moved here from NYC two years ago. In all my years there, I never got hit with as much campaign mail and robotic phone calls as I did for this election -- certainly not for city council positions. All these four-color mailbox stuffers cost money to design and produce! Are the city council candidates spending it because they're fired up about all the good things they want to do for the city? What am I missing?

Voting always feels good. And afterward, waiting for my wife, I could sit in the Ben Franklin lobby and look up at the ornate ceiling tiles. I have to say the large number of things to vote for on today's ballot -- lots more than just mayor and council -- reminded me (this is not a new thought) that to be really knowledgeable about the people running for lesser (or less in the public eye) offices requires more homework than even the most dedicated citizens are likely to do. I wonder what percentage of voters, as they push the button for, say, court of common pleas judge, have any idea at all about the character or positions of the recipient of their vote.

Still, it feels good to vote. You may not pick a winner every time, but it's great to have a chance to throw a bum out. They don't get to do that in a lot of places.

I voted in the suburbs and man it was boring. Just a few school board races and a ballot question. I really miss the city and elections that are a bit higher stakes. I guess I wanted to redeem myself after voting to reelect Street.

No problems voting this morning...a little confusion at first because now there is another district voting in our polling place. My neighbor & committee person did a helpful (& short) analysis of the candidates and the ballot questions.
I totally agree with the earlier post from the former New Yorkers...what is the deal with all of the automated messages? I just deleted them, do the candidates really think this works? I hope this is not a sign of the future.

Since I put the question out there, I'll weigh in. I'm currently a Montco voter, and on days like today, I miss standing in line to vote in the city. Ok, I don't miss standing in line. Or being packed into a fairly small space in a Graduate Hospital lobby. I do miss directly participating in city elections, esp. this particular election since I've spent so much time learning about the people/issues in the city races for the Great Expectations project.
Only three or four people were gathered outside my polling place. One was a candidate for ... I don't know what. I didn't catch his name. The people part of campaigning didn't seem to be his thing. Without being rude, the volunteer for the Dems wasn't letting anyone through without offering a sample ballot, mainly to point out which of the cross-filed school board candidates were actually Democrats. Although, does party really come into play on the school board?
The whole process took less than 10 minutes. I was the only one 30 or younger in sight. (I suspect I was the only one under 50, actually.) I hope the pace picks up when people got off work. But with the only contested races being for judicial seats and school board, turn out might be more than a little low.

I went to vote at 20th and Fitzwater in the 30th, and the man in the voting booth next to me had the machine conk out mid vote.

The election judge (the only one there, for the Democrats) said it was a dead battery!

Let me ask you, how can you let a machine have a dead battery on election day? Don't these things have CORDS you can plug into the wall?

This is wrong and it smells very fishy to me.

This election judge has had complaints in the past for verbal and physical altercations! Yet, somehow, this is the only candidate for this position that can be found by the whole local Democratic party?

Sloppy, unprofessional, and suspect.

Other states and cities have non-partisan employees run the elections, not party affiliated paid members running the whole election.

The Democratic party election "supervisor" or seemingly a technician was behind the machines the whole time we voted, fiddling with them.

I've never voted in a place where you have to have someone behind the machine to "clear" it for the "next voter." We were all registered Demomcrats, it wasn't like they had to change it because of that so you could vote in your party's primary.

Plus what gives with voting in churches? Don't we have enough schools and non-secular, non-politically affiliated public rooms?

Come on Philly. Get modern.

My wife went to vote at the Christian St. YMCA this morning and said there was no one there outside of election officials. I went a couple of hours later and once again, I was the only voter. I'm from Philly, but just moved into the neighborhood. A few hours later over lunch, I decided to sign up for membership over at the YMCA that I voted in earlier. At that time there was no one there. My neighborhood is only about half occupied because of all the construction, but this is a bit ridiculous. When I came back during the lunch hour, one of the many campaign personell people (none of which actually handed me anything or tried to sway my vote) that was outside the Y recognized me and mentioned that I can only vote twice. I laughed, and explained why I was there. I asked if it had been busy. He replied saying that he wouldn't have recognized me if there was any more than a few people voting today.

If this happens all over the city, in what looked like such a heated campaign, what could happen to the vote. I am interested to hear if one of the wards has a high voter turnout, and where it is located.

The biggest boneheaded move was by the candidate for Traffic Court judge who put campaign literature in the form of a parking violation in windshields in my neighborhood. Note to future candidates: that move caused more ill-will than anything else and the guy did not get elected.

Charles Jones
Philadelphia

I was very upset that D.Roberts who challange A.Verna would send one of his hatchetman to intimidate a committeeperson at the polling place at 21st and Dickerson st, but most losers get there hatchetman to do the dirty work.