Election Day 2010

Election Day 2010. Get out today and vote! (if you haven’t done so already). Here in the City of Newton, my voting location is in the Elementary School – and it was quite busy. Of course, its an active time as parents are dropping off their children on the way to work (there are no busses for elementary schools in Newton). The voting technology in the precinct is a paper ballot with ovals to be filled by black marker and inserted into an optical scan machine – a technology they have been using here for many years now. The counter on the machine read 245 as of about 8:30am (with 11 1/2 hours of voting to go). In the 2008 general election, the precinct had over 1,400 ballots cast and about 1,100 in the 2006 general election – will be interesting to see whether the intensity of this midterm drives the turnout closer to 2008 or remains closer to that of 2006. In addition to the Gubernatorial contest, there is also a competitive House race for the first time in years. Enjoy the day.