Politics & Government

Voters Are Out, But Not in Force [Photos]

As voters trickled into Norwood Elementary, those polled were divided on town elections, but united on their choice for county executive.

Voter turnout was low at Tuesday evening, with only 500 of about 2300 registered voters voting at 5:30 p.m.

Five out of six voters polled outside of Norwood said they voted for Democratic candidate Steve Bellone who is in the race for the open County Executive seat against Republican Angie Carpenter.

"I think he's a great guy. He has a good track record," said Rose Ann Walsh, who works for Autism Speaks and supports Bellone for his promotion of autism awareness.

Find out what's happening in Northportwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Nick Bubolo said he voted for Bellone as County Executive because he feels like he can trust him. As for the town, Bubolo said that he'd like to see some new blood. "After a while it gets to be that people stop trying, no matter what they say. It's not that they're doing anything wrong, but I think they could be more innovative."

James W. Denniston also voted for Bellone but took the opposite tack on town government, which he said has been going strong since he arrived in 1980. "Some of the incumbents have done a good job, the councilmen in the town of Huntington, so I gave them a vote of confidence," he said. "I think they've done a good job and it seems to be run very efficiently."

Find out what's happening in Northportwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Conservative-leaning voter Carolyn Kaminsky said she's not impressed by any of the candidates. "I don't think that any of them are horribly strong," she said.

No errors were reported on the machines aside from a duplicate ballot that was quickly corrected. "When the printer went through and stamped the numbers there were two numbers in there so they just made one spoiled and that was the end of that," said Election Coordinator Rick Spavins.

Spavins had been sitting at Norwood School monitoring the polls since 6 a.m. and spent much of the day discussing the benefits of mail-in voting systems with his co-worker. "It seems like they try to complicate things instead of simplify them. The federal government mandated a paper trail, well you've got human error," he said. "In Washington and Oregon all the elections are vote by mail. Think about that, that's an efficient way to do it," he said.


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