Elections 2012

Status check: Polls thick with voters, all day long

Tue, 11/06/2012 - 5:15am

    By 4 p.m. on Nov. 6, more than 3,000 voters had cast ballots at the Camden Fire Station, in Camden. That would be more than 80 percent of registered voters in that town had visited the polls, and many people had yet even to clock out of their workday at 5 p.m.

    They brought their babies, children, even puppies tucked inside jackets, to choose their next president, and check off ballots full of questions and candidates.

    Camden Town Clerk Katrina Oakes said the voting had been heavy all day, and the box of newly registered voters was expanding by the hour.

    Rockport reported a similar state of affairs, with voters lining up outside the door of the Town Office and along the walkway to the parking lot at 8 a.m. to select a president, U.S. senator, state senator and representative, state referendums, and town articles.

    At 7:30 p.m., 2,173 voters had cast ballots, and there approximately 2,684 voters in Rockport.

    Like Camden, the voting in Rockport had been steady all day, with booths filled. At 5 p.m., lines were starting to thread out the front door, again.

     

    Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog, at the New York Times, has been recommended as a great place to watch election returns unfold. The blog name is taken from the number of electors in the United States electoral college.

    FiveThirtyEight - Nate Silver\'s Political Calculus