We had a very busy time of it in 6-4 at First Christian Church in Whittier. That precinct covers all of Whittier east of Nicollet and a double tier of blocks west of Nicollet from Franklin to 27th St. - more than half the geographic area of the neighborhood and about 60% of the total voter turnout in Whittier. 1872 voters are reported to have turned out for this election, 53.36% of the total registered. We had over 650 same-day registrations, apparently slightly more than a third of those voting. I'm uncertain about the math in this early snapshot at one remove - final numbers will eventually tell a more accurate tale. The absentee ballots were an intricate affair and the hand-counting of senatorial votes took us well into the night as was undoubtedly the case in big precincts all around Minnesota.
I was one of three chair judges, but I went belly-up at 1:00 am and left before the last of the tallying gestures having gotten so befuddled with fatigue that I was reduced to stacking furniture and then standing zombie-like off to the side. We really need a better way of staffing these big precincts - it is unreasonable to expect judges to work from 6:00 am to midnight and beyond when there's a big expected turnout. My read of my physical condition here two days later tells me that I've got to pass the torch to others - I can only wonder how well the other judges in their golden years fared, but I know my goose is cooked. We were impressed by the patient determination of our voters. These are fairly young folks in the aggregate who live in the many large apartment buildings in the area. There's also a sprinkling of homeowners and participation from nursing homes and group homes, but 6-4 and the 6-2 precinct (the rest of the blocks in Whittier west of 6-4 plus a tier of five blocks along the bottom of 6-2 bounded on the south by 28th St.) are big-time renter precincts. Together with the 6-3 precinct (Stevens Square-Loring Heights), these tenant-heavy areas brought out more than 5000 voters. Pretty refreshing! Fred Markus, Horn Terrace, Ward Ten _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@;mnforum.org Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
