Borough voting site faces isolated problems

Tensions ran high mid-afternoon Tuesday at the Trinity Church Parish Home, voting site for Princeton Borough's District 1.

According to Joshua Leinsdorf, an election official at the site, the district was in danger of running out of voting authorities — documents which record voters as they arrive to vote.

The district must have one voting authority for each voter before the voter is allowed to cast a ballot.

Leinsdorf said the district has 1,250 active voters out of a roll of about 1,800 registered voters.

He expected a turnout of well over 1,000 voters. By late afternoon, over 700 votes had already been cast.

Leinsdorf was extremely worried, however, because he only had 1,000 voting authorities.

"I don't know what the hell we'd do [if we ran out]," he said.

To resolve the issue, Leinsdorf was in constant communication with the Trenton Board of Elections.

The root of the problem was that the Trenton officials thought that the district had already been given enough voting authorities.

"They swear they gave us 1,800," Leinsdorf said.

By about 4 p.m., however, Leinsdorf had arranged the delivery of another 250 voting authorities.

The only other issues that arose during the day were minor, said Leinsdorf.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

At one point the district ran out of provisional ballots, but he was able to quickly obtain more.

Also, a blind voter was unable to use the audio function of the electronic voting machines.

Overall, the majority of voters seem to have had no issues voting. "I walked in, [there was] no wait, I pushed the buttons, [and] that's it," said Michael Snyder '08, a first time voter who registered through P-Votes.

Beth Dalmut '08 described her first time voting as a positive experience.

"Everyone on campus is so energetic [about the election]," she added.

Behind the registration table at Trinity Church sat two official challengers, who were checking to make sure no ineligible votes were cast.

According to Leinsdorf, no voter had been challenged. The challengers refused to comment.

At one point, a Borough police officer stopped by the site to ensure that there were no problems. As he entered the voting room, he joked to the election officials and the few voters standing in line, "Any terrorists?"

Sharon Dodd, who was running a bake sale for the church nursery in the lobby, said she noticed no major issues during the day.