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PELHAM, N.Y. Laura Paci visited the Pelham Town House during her lunch break on Tuesday to vote in the Republican primary for the two town justice seats in Pelham. Voters streamed in and out of the polling center throughout the day.
Even though the election is only a primary for two seats, Paci said that the votes are important.
"(The primary is important for voters) if they want to elect their people," Paci said.
The 41-year Pelham resident said she usually votes in elections and primaries.
But not everyone in Pelham shared Paci's ideals. Peter Vitere, a worker on the election board, said that the flow of voters was slow on Tuesday.
"It'll pick up a bit, but it probably won't be too busy," Vitere said at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. "It's usually this way with a small election like this."
The stream of voters increased somewhat into the early evening as people returned home from work and got off the train at the Pelham Metro-North station.
"It's not heavy, but it's gotten better," Vitere said at 6:00 p.m. "It's nothing to write home about it, but it's better than it was."
Another election board worker, Frank Zumpano, said that many senior citizen voters are not happy with the newer machines that they must use. The old machines required voters to move a curtain and pull a few levers to place their votes.
With the new machines, voters must sign in and receive a large sheet ballot with the names of the candidates on them. Then they place the sheet into a privacy seal, take it to a table and fill in the bubbles next to the name of the candidates of their choice. Finally, they insert the sheets into a machine, which will return it to the voter if there is a problem.
Zumpano said he did not think the machines are a deterrent to citizen voters.
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