Thursday, September 10, 2020
Voting in the Primary
I voted in the Democratic primary here in Rhode Island Tuesday. This is probably the most Democratic (and Catholic) state in the country, though we have a puny 4 electoral votes. In 2016, Sanders beat Hillary here, a huge upset. We do produce, surprisingly, the occasional Republican governor.
At the polling place, a town gym, I showed up at around 10 am, masked and ready. I thought it was closed—no one hanging around, no police. I did see a sign “vote here” so I entered that door and found only one other person voting. There were about a dozen people staffing the place for both parties combined. Although there were a dozen voting cubicles, they were not six feet apart, and the processing machines, two of them, were right next to each other for some strange reason. Nor were some of the people processing the paperwork six feet apart, though everyone was masked.
I voted in 90 seconds, start to finish. Kind of a downer in a way….