Normally in an off-election year, Jean Adams brings a book to the polling place where she volunteers.
Not this midterm election. Tuesday, she left her latest read – a Catherine Coulter FBI thriller – at home.
“In the spring I brought a book because I figured it’d be slow, and it was slow,” said Adams, who is a Republican minority inspector for the 2nd Precinct at the Berkshire Heights Fire Company in Wyomissing. “Not today because I kind of figured it’d be busy today because there’s been so much interest in this one.”
Early voting Tuesday and the untouched doughnuts left out for busy poll workers seemed to bear this out.
Richard Weinhoffer, who took his 4-year-old daughter Isabelle with him to the polls, said he’s typically voter number 50-something when he votes after work. Tuesday, 25 minutes after the polls opened, he was voter number 41.
“It feels like people who didn’t care about other things, suddenly care about this, one way or the other,” Weinhoffer said. “People are waking up. That’s the point of elections.”
Voting Election Day morning was brisk at the firehouse on Park Road North. Nearly 100 ballots had been cast before 9 a.m.
“We had a long line at 7,” said William “Bill” Glasser, precinct election judge. “The only thing that beats this is a presidential election.”
Bundled in a jacket under a blue umbrella, Crystal Kowalski handed out sample Democrat ballots in front of the firehouse. Unlike other nonpresidential elections, people are motived this year, Kowalski said. She hopes her blue umbrella is a sign of the voting wave.
“Everybody is saying they’re voting a straight ticket,” Kowalski said. “I have never voted a straight ticket in my life, but I am this year.”
The way Kowalski sees it, when the dust settles on this midterm the turnout will have been driven by the most basic human instinct, what candidate Donald Trump in 2016 called real power.
“People are terrified,” Kowalski said. “Nothing motivates you like fear.”
If Kowalski is hoping for a blue wave, Conal Kramer is believing in a groundswell of another color.
“It could definitely be beneficial for those who like the changes,” the Wyomissing resident said. “Despite the fake news, there’s a lot of good going on.”
Contact Nicole C. Brambila: 610-371-5044 or nbrambila@readingeagle.com.
