Few Students Turn Out for Election Day

The Ward Eight, Precinct Three, polling station, set up in the lobby of Quincy House, saw a lot of student traffic yesterday—but only from a distance. Few of the students passing through on election day stopped to cast ballots.

The eight red-and-blue voting booths remained empty throughout most of the day, leaving the five election officials and one Cambridge police officer there with little to do.

The election supervisor there would not provide comment.

But, at 11:30 a.m., three-and-a-half hours after the polls had opened, only 27 people had cast ballots. By 3 p.m., that number had grown to 52 people, and, when polls closed at 8 p.m., only 89 people had voted. 806 are registered in the precinct.

On a path to the polls that determined the composition of the Cambridge City Council and Schools Committee, Harvard students left few footprints.

Jessica A. Bloom ‘07, a native Cantabrigian who lives in Pforzheimer House, said that, although she had voted in the last two Cambridge elections, this time it proved inconvenient to access her assigned polling station near the Quad at Graham and Parks Alternative Public School.

“I’ve been out of my room all day, and my polling station is near my dorm,” she said.

Some, though, found local politics alluring enough to warrant a trip to the polls.

Seth R. Flaxman ‘08, who hails from Evanston, Ill., said he voted in the Cambridge election because, after being initiated into local politics, he wanted to get involved in the Cambridge election.

“I talked to people who I knew who either had voted here or had been following the races and I talked to some candidates who were out on Mass. Ave. last weekend,” he said.

The Quincy House voting center was designated to serve local residents—including students—from Eliot House to Lowell House. Most of the people using the polling station, like Tawfik Sameh, who lives on JFK St., were not Harvard students.

Sameh brought a white-and-green sign for City Council candidate Craig Kelley when he went to vote at Quincy House, but was not allowed to bring the sign into the polling station—all campaign material was barred from the lobby. He said he had brought the sign as a last-minute gesture of support.

“[Kelly] is a gentleman I feel deserves to be elected,” he said.

Meanwhile, one student tried to capitalize on the election-day flow of civic-minded voters, expecting it to be more than just a trickle.

Mina S. Makarious ‘06 stood outside the Quincy House gate on Plympton St., seeking signatures for a state petition for affordable healthcare.

“We picked [this time] because we thought it would be busier,” he said.

Makarious said he was not voting in the day’s election because he was not registered in Cambridge.

—Staff writer William L. Jusino can be reached at jusino@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.