Local Voters Tune In or Drop Out

ROXBURY--Huddled between the Daily Fish Market and Sunny's Market outside of Dudley Square, a 33 year-old man who goes by the single name of Amin was selling CDs and video tapes to passersby yesterday.

Although it was Election Day, he said he has never voted and did not plan to have a sudden change of heart and head to the voting booths.

"I don't believe those guys can do anything for me," he said. "The way politicians behave is wrong. They never come through on a promise."

Like about 27 percent of Massachusetts voters, Amin--who is not even registered to vote--did not participate in yesterday's election.

As Amin lamented that people in the world are starving while the U.S. spends billions on the International Space Station, Roxbury resident James Stone, 25, broke into the conversation.

"Politics comes all the way down to the common man," he said. "We have to be involved because it affects our lives."

Although some of his friends say voting does not make any difference, Stone has voted and cannot stop talking about Vice President Al Gore '69.

"What I like about Al Gore is that he said he's fighting for the people," Stone said. "The Clinton administration has done a great job in the past eight years."

In the 1996 presidential election, 34 percent of 21 to 24 year-olds voted. Stone was one of those who made the increasingly rare decision to go to the polls.

But yesterday, in both Roxbury and across the Boston area, voters were not merely wandering into the polls or apathetically opting out of the election--they were lining up before polls opened, taking vacation days to run polling places or actively discounting the voting process.

For area voters the real decision was not necessarily choosing among the presidential contenders, but whether they believed the voting booth--and the democratic process--would truly represent their opinions.

Morning in Somerville

The election workers had nearly all arrived by 6:30 a.m. yesterday morning at the College Avenue United Methodist Church in Somerville. The warden, Marsha E. Lavalle, coffee in hand, directed her staff of six to set up tables, post information for voters in the narrow hall leading to the ballot room and prepare themselves for 13 hours of democracy.

"Ladies, there are going to be people leaving things in the voting booths," she announced to the workers darting around her, "so if you see something, grab it."

In a ritual repeated thousands of times across the country, the workers of Somerville Ward 6, Precinct 3 were preparing for the 1,656 voters who were slated to show up yesterday.

Lavalle, an intense, middle-aged woman, wore a pink heart- embroidered sweater that did not quite fit her take-charge attitude. Despite her 15 years of experience as a warden, she was notably agitated yesterday morning.

"I've been having nightmares for a week," she said. "We're going to have long lines."

As the polling station opened for business at 7:02 a.m., a group of about 20 voters filed into the long hallway leading to the voting room. Almost immediately, the electronic vote counter misfed one of yesterday's unusually long ballots.

"It's not even 7:30 and I want to rip my hair out," Lavalle exclaimed.

As Lavalle wrestled with the counting machine, Louisa D. Winters, another election staff member, answered questions and called out instructions to voters waiting in line.

"A lot of people come from out of state and they are not used to paper ballots. You have to keep them well-informed," she explained.

Winters has volunteered to help with elections since she was 18. She has also worked on campaigns for local aldermen and on the House campaign of Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.).

An accountant at International Forest Products, Winters took a vacation day to come work at the polls.

She speaks with the intensity of someone deeply committed to the democratic process.

"I firmly believe that everyone should be informed," she said. "Voting is the one right no one can take away."

She does not have much sympathy for those who do not vote.

"I've found that 80 percent of the people who criticize government do nothing about it," Winters said. "We're living in such a cynical world."

'I'm Not Part of the Game'

In the shadow of the gold-domed State House, Jose Morales and Gustavo Restrepo were eating late lunches at a Greek diner, The Fill-A-Buster, yesterday afternoon. They are regulars here and yesterday. Morales was eating a plate of beef kebobs. Restrepo was eating chicken kebobs.

Neither Restrepo nor Morales voted yesterday. Neither is a U.S. citizen, but they said even if they were, they would not vote.

"The only people who believe in politics have big money and can do what they want," Morales said.

Morales and Restrepo are middle-aged janitors employed by ABM, a janitorial services contractor. They often work downtown, and yesterday they were working at Suffolk University.

Morales emigrated from Mexico 11 years ago and holds a dim view of politicians, both in America and in Mexico.

"Politicians promise you and then you never see what you want to see," he said. "In all countries, presidents are the same."

Morales said he has made a conscious decision not to vote in this election.

"I believe abstention is a strong political position," he said. "I just want to say I'm not part of the game. I'm opposed to the game."

The Myth of the Apathetic Non-Voter?

Voter turnout in presidential elections has fallen from 63 percent in 1960 to less the 50 percent in 1996. Although these statistics are often cited as proof of voter apathy, many non-voters in Boston yesterday said they had reasons for not voting.

Toting a sign outside the Park Street T station that urged voters not to vote, Joey L. Steele, 24, said that whoever wins, the country would see no real change.

"We're told every four years that our vote is worth as much as some rich guy's vote," he said. "That's true because neither vote is worth anything."

A union boilermaker, Steele was passing out newsletters for the Revolutionary Communist Party. He said the only way to affect real change is to "overthrow the system."

Just steps away on Boston Common, Ralph Nader supporter and retired television executive Tom P. Cancilla, 65, said he always makes it to the polls.

As Cancilla tossed peanuts to the nearly tame squirrels, he mused how citizens would not exercise their democratic rights.

"When I was leaving to vote this morning," he said, "I asked a custodian in my building 'Have you voted?' and he said, 'Oh, I don't vote.'"

"People in other countries would give their right arms to vote in an election," he concluded.