Quincy House Serves as Poll

Permanent residents of Cambridge's third precinct in the eighth ward must have felt like they were voting in an Undergraduate Council election yesterday, not a presidential primary.

Under a new local redistricting plan, Quincy House hosts the precinct's polling place and approximately 90 percent of the registered voters are Harvard students.

Yesterday's voters at Quincy--where most river house residents were assigned to vote in Super Tuesday--were notable mainly because of their electoral inexperience.

Student turnout was very light, and several students had to receive crash courses on how to use Cambridge's punch card machines, election officials said. At least one student looked puzzled as she asked if she was supposed to go into one of the curtained booths.

"I like this. I like to deal with young people," said election worker Annie Scanlon of Cambridge, who was stationed at Quincy House. "It's so much pleasanter."

Glenn S. Koocher '71, warden of the third precinct, said he noticed that the voting at Quincy was related to class times. "We're getting a lot of votes between the hour and ten minutes after the hour," he said.

This is the first year that Quincy House and Larsen Hall at the School of Education, where Yard residents voted, have been used as polling sites. Koocher said that the polls have come to these University buildings because of the recent redistricting in Cambridge and the requirement that polls be made accessible to handicapped voters.

Students found the Quincy location convenient. "It's excellent," Constance M. Chen '90 said. "Last year I didn't vote because you had to go to a fire station somewhere."

"It's a very convenient place, especially for Quincy House residents. Most people don't have a polling place in their house," Koocher said, adding, "It's the only polling place with pinball machines."

Not Distinguished

Harvard students did not distinguish themselves from other Cambridge residents. According to Thomas M. Smith, warden at Larsen Hall, the breakdown between Democratic and Republican voters among Harvard students was similar to the ratio of other Cambridge residents--overwhelmingly Democratic. "The whole metropolitan Boston area is very liberal. Students just follow trends," he said.

But, overall, Harvard students were noticeable in their absence. "Turnout is fairly low," Smith said, adding that registered Harvard students tend to vote at half the rate of Cambridge residents in his precinct.

"The younger you are, the less you end up voting. People in college tend to vote less, not just at Harvard," Smith said.