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Subject: Pileup at the Polls;Lines Make Voting Slow, Tempers Short<By DeNeen L.
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 92 04:54:43 EST
Message-ID: <62.1992Nov4.045444@AmeriCast.com>

Pileup at the Polls;Lines Make Voting Slow, Tempers Short<By
DeNeen L.  Brown=Washington Post Staff Writer=

At Watkins Elementary School in the District, voting lines snaked
across the cafeteria and back again, confusing voters on where
one line ended and another began.

"You need to get organized," yelled one woman, who had stood in
the wrong line for 30 minutes.  Lines, crowds and confusion en-
tangled and, in some cases, angered many Washington area
residents trying to vote on an Election Day that saw one of the
largest local turnouts in history.

The day was filled with stories of lines formed long before polls
opened, of people upset at the slow pace and of voters leaving
when the waiting became too much.

At Langdon Recreation Center in Northeast Washington, where it
took up to two hours to vote, some voters tried to cut in line,
and others swore at election officials and threatened to complain
to the mayor.

"We just didn't seem to be able to handle the crowd," said Ches-
ter R. Martin, a precinct captain. "We were just overwhelmed."

By 5:15 a.m., voters were lined up at West Springfield High
School in Fairfax County.

"I was here when it opened, and there were 150 people in line to
vote," said Bill Hurd, a Burke precinct worker. "One person left
saying, 'Now I know why no one votes. There are too many people
in line." James E. Worden, 74, a precinct worker in Alexandria
who has been working elections since the early 1950s, said he had
never seen such a turnout.  "There were lines around the corner
until about 10:45," Worden said. "I'd say it's the biggest crowd
ever."

Although the lines were long, irritating some people, there was
comfort at the end of many of them, as PTAs and other groups took
advantage of the traffic to raise money.

At Parkside Elementary School in Manassas, business was brisk at
the school's parent-teacher organization bake sale, and
volunteers took note of preferences among political followings.
"The Clinton people like sweets," Sharon Bogle said.

"And the Perot people like nuts in their brownies," Susan Young,
the PTO president said, adding that Bush supporters seemed to
like coffee.

As the adults waited in line to vote at Parkside, students around
the corner got a chance to pick from among the presidential can-
didates in a voting booth designed by a parent and rigged with
pulleys, levers, jars, a fly swatter and a bell.

The candidates were identified by their pictures, and a vote was
cast by dropping a poker chip into a slot.

"I felt so grown up," Nichole Dalusung, 7, said after voting for
Clinton. "Everybody keeps on saying that my vote is going to give
us 40 more days of school. But that doesn't mean he will."

It wasn't just the PTA bake-sale crowd that was piggybacking on
the activity at polls. At Northfield Elementary School in Howard
County, Janet Sloan was hustling recruits for a fledgling anti-
tax group in the county.

Sloan, 39, handed out green membership cards for the Howard Coun-
ty Taxpayers Association.

"We're trying to increase our membership so we can make a bigger
push for holding down taxes," said Sloan, who estimated that
there were recruiters at about 40 other precincts.

Throughout the area, campaign workers manned phones and drove
shuttles in a massive effort to get their candidates' supporters
to the polls.  Michael Day, 25, an issues director with Democrat
Leslie L. Byrne's campaign in Virginia's 11th Congressional Dis-
trict, said that he and about 15 other people created a "Dawn Pa-
trol."

After working the telephones until 11 p.m., they went home to
bed, but arose again by 3 a.m. Then they went out to plant last-
minute campaign leaflets on doorsteps in Vienna and Reston.

They ran into women with their hair in rollers and men walking
out to get newspapers who were surprised to see someone on their
doorsteps.

"We were moving pretty fast," Day said. "We got down and dirty
real fast. We had to get the job done and get out and move to the
next neighborhood."

Elderly voters in the area benefited from transportation services
that dispatched cars and operated shuttle buses to help them get
to the polls.

Marion Wiles, 87, a resident of Washington House in Alexandria,
said if she hadn't gotten a ride, she would have paid for a taxi.
"I vote every time there is a reason to vote," she said.  "I want
to have a say in the way this country is run."

Behind the wheel of a shuttle bus outside the Glenarden Municipal
Center, Belinda Pinkney, 31, opened a shuttle bus door for air.

Yesterday was supposed to have been her day off. But Pinkney, a
driver for the Glenarden Call-a-Bus service, volunteered to work,
ferrying elderly people to the polls. With voter turnout so
heavy, her morning had been busy.

"I don't mind working," she said. "The elderlies, I like to feel
as though I'm helping them, because I enjoy them." And she knew
what was on their minds.

"Clinton. That's what I keep hearing," she said. "They're all
talking about Clinton, how he won't cut their Social Security."

As election workers added up returns on presidential and congres-
sional races, there was another race going on at the Washington
House, a cookie election. Using recipes from Hillary Clinton and
Barbara Bush, staff members baked, and residents chose.

The Clinton recipe won 40 to 30.<Staff writers Stephen Buckley,
Charles Babington, Dan Beyers, Paul Duggan, Maria E.  Odum, Car-
los Sanchez, Gabriel Escobar, Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Robert F.
Howe contributed to this report.<02:53 11-04C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor-
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