Support for Kerry and Edwards Dominates

Amanda Gonzalez

“Kerry –Edwards, Kerry - Edwards,” could be seen all over the 2 polling places I visited on Election Day. A young women wears a shirt reading ‘FCUK BSUH’ an older women compliments her on it. This was definitely an election like no other.

I was surprised that other political parties were not represented at my own polling place located at 2115 Sansom Street in an adult community center. Organizers at this location said that lines began at 6:30 in the morning and sometimes wrapped all the way around the block. No one complained that their party was not represented leading me to believe that many of the voters I was standing in line with were going to vote for Kerry and Edwards for president and vice president. One older man, Mr. Tucker, had no complaints about waiting in line, he was more upset at all of the phone calls he received yesterday from various recordings rallying votes for one party or another. He even received a call from Laura Bush – which put him over the edge, forcing him to hang up. Another women said that she refused to answer her phone last night because of all the calls she had been receiving. Maybe we need to develop a ‘Do Not Call’ list for election time?

After work I went to the community center located at 3500 Lancaster Avenue. I expected there to be more of a minority showing. I had voted at this location for the 2000 election and remembered a variety of people coming to this location. However, when I got there the line consisted of mostly college age students. It was great to see all of these young people waiting to vote in a line that extended from the front doors halfway down the block. No one seemed to mind waiting for about an hour to vote. All of the people I spoke to agree that it was a good sign because it means people are getting out and voting. I spoke to one Drexel University student, Mike, who had just voted after waiting for an hour. “Everything went well inside. I did not see any problems,” he said after I asked if things were going smoothly inside the polling place. Christina, Dave and Pete, all Drexel students, felt like they were the only Republicans at Drexel. “We haven’t seen any signs other than ones for John Kerry around Drexel,” she [Christina] said.

The group MoveOnPac was stationed at the Lancaster Ave. location waiting to hear from those voters that may have experienced a problem during voting. Sharvon, a MoveOnPac member, had not heard of anything going wrong at this location, “The only compliant came from a gentleman who pulled up in a car and said that he felt intimidated because his party’s signs were not up. But he never got out of the car to vote or put up his own party’s signs.” Other than that everything was going well, workers and voters were very optimistic about the whole experience

As I stood around talking to people many passers by yelled, “vote for Kerry” or honked their horns cheering on voters waiting. The overall atmosphere of both polling places I visited was uplifting. Everyone was excited to vote and excited that there were so many people voting in this election. There may not have been any mishaps at these locations but one theme remained clear, most people in these areas were Kerry – Edwards supporters.