UPDATED at 8:08 P.M.
Ballot in hand, Vivian Shen exited Hopewell Baptist Church, after casting her first-ever vote in an American election. Dr. Shen, a professor at Davidson College, was born in China.
The polls are closed in North Carolina, after a steady stream of Davidson voters cast ballots in the battleground that is North Carolina.
First-time voter Vivian Shen of Davidson’s McConnell neighborhood was among many new voters in this election. At her polling place, Precinct 127 on Davidson-Concord Road, election judge Connie Wessner reported in the morning that about 120 votes per hour were being cast.
Stay tuned – DavidsonNews.net will post results for both of Davidson’s precincts as soon as they are available.
At Precinct 127, Chief Judge Meg Clark said voting was steady until 3:30.
“That’s when the end of the end of the line moved inside the doors,” Ms. Clark said. Prior to that, the line snaked up and down the covered walkway outside the polling place. The maximum wait time for the day was about 90 minutes at midday. The last voter came through the door at 7:28 p.m.
The lines at Precinct 127, one of two for the Town of Davidson, snaked along the sidewalk in the morning, causing a wait of about 75 minutes by 11 a.m.
As final numbers were still being crunched, Ms. Wessner said it appeared that 1,212 people (which would be roughly 40 percent of those registered) voted Election Day at Precinct 127.
Meanwhile, at Town Hall’s Precinct 206, there were no lines when the polls closed at 7:30 p.m. But there was a long line at the Ben & Jerry’s a few doors down, where free cones were being given away to those who voted.
Town Hall judges also reported that voting was heaviest through the midday and then tapered off until the polls closed. That precinct has about 3,800 registered voters, a majority of whom are Democrats. (That compares to about 3,000 at Hopewell, with more than half being Republicans.) Party affiliation was reflected in “Kids Voting” results, which gave Barack Obama a 2-1 edge among the under-18 set at Town Hall. See full Precinct 206 “Kids Voting” results in our post, “Kids at Town Hall Give the Race to Obama.”
Voters were at Town Hall at 6 waiting for the polls to open at 6:30. (Bill Giduz photo)
