Voters Face “Horrible, Terrible Choices” on the Upper East Side of Manhattan
In the early morning on the 2016 Presidential Election day, people lined up outside a polling site at Robert Wagner Middle School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
This year, New York City has one of the longest voting hours in the States — from 6a.m. to 9p.m on November 8th. The line goes faster than expected, said people who had just walked out the polling location.
But the polling machines this year are antiquated technology. Past elections used to have much modern technologies, according to Tom Block, a 70 year-old Upper East Side resident. “It’s a 2-step operation. You have to go to one place to fill it out, and another place to put it in,” said Block. “They went backwards, from mid-20th century technology to 19th century technology.”
Block is a Republican in the real estate industry who just voted for Clinton. “I voted for Clinton — I voted for the most experienced candidate.”
An older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Harris, came to the polling site at 8 a.m. in the morning and waited for 40 minutes to vote. The couple has never missed a every presidential election.
“Horrible, terrible choices,” said Mr. Harris. “Worst presidential candidates we’ve ever had in our life.” Mrs. Harris said her vote was negative, not positive. “I voted for the person that I thought was the least worst person,” said Mrs. Harris.
The couple said they never tell each other who they vote for in an election, but suspected they have voted for the same person this time, because the other one is “clearly the worst.” “I think she’s going to win. I think she will win one of North Carolina or Florida, and maybe Pennsylvania,” said Mr. Harris.
Though Mrs. Harris thinks Clinton might win, she’s not so sure. “The way this election is going, you just don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “Tomorrow you just wake up in the morning and you don’t know what happened yesterday.”
A group of students from Robert Wagner Middle School were running their small candy business from 8 a.m. just next to the voting line. Cookies, energy bars and cakes were sold for $1, attracting flocks of hungry voters in the early morning.
The students are raising money for the school to support school appliances and their extracurricular programs. “We don’t have a goal of making much money,” said the boys. “We are making people happy—that’s our goal.”
