GREENFIELD – The Greenfield High School parking lot was flooded with voters and campaigners for Election Day.
According to Greenfield City Clerk Kathy Scott, 10 percent of the registered voters had arrived at the polls by 10 a.m. Voters continued to pour in at a steady rate as the day moved along. By noon, 20.8 percent of voters had turned out. This is compared to the 28 percent that partook in September’s preliminary election.
“Just vote,” said resident Kristyn Shippee.
Shippee and fellow resident Stephanie Gusan-Duclos stood along Silver Street waving to voters as they pulled into the school. While Gusan-Duclos noted she cast her vote for mayoral candidate Brickett Allis, both she and Shippee hoped for a large turnout – no matter who or what residents vote for.
“At least people are getting involved,” Shippee said. “People are waking up and participating.”
Residents stood along the sidewalk outside of the high school, holding signs to support the various candidates and ballot questions. Among those outside the polls were all three mayoral candidates. Each candidate said they were pleased with the voter turnout thus far.
“It has been steady,” mayoral candidate Roxann Wedegartner said of the turnout. “I feel good about it. We’re getting some honks and some thumbs up. . . It’s in the hands of the voters now.”
Sheila Gilmour, mayoral candidate, said she was cautiously optimistic while awaiting the election results. She said she felt her campaign hit a stride about six weeks ago and kept its momentum.
“Sometime you just have to break out of that ‘I know what I want to say but don’t know how to say it’ thing,” Gilmour said. “I found my voice and people started paying attention. That felt really good.”
Allis, who has been campaigning as a write-in candidate for mayor following the results of the preliminary election, said he was pleased with his campaign efforts.
“My campaign worked its tail off,” Allis said. “We did everything that we could do. . . . It’s gonna be what it’s gonna to be.”
Residents standing in the parking lot of the high school continued to campaign for the library ballot question. Ed Berlin, a supporter of the question, said the campaign had worked hard leading up to election day.
“It’s a great day in Greenfield when residents vote and exercise their voice,” Berlin said.
Rachel Gordon, a proponent for Yes on Question 2, also said she was happy with the turnout but noted its “hard to tell” what the results will be. She said there was still phone banking for the ballot question going on throughout the day Tuesday.
Greenfield Police Chief Robert Haigh said the police department had prepared for a busy day at the polls. He noted that while the department had multiple officers at the school polling site, it was not in response to the protests at the John Zon Community Center on Oct. 24.
“We were already planning to have a greater staffing increase, just because of the type of year it is,” Haigh said. “You’re looking at a lot of open seats, the mayoral race and you have two ballots questions that are going to bring a crowd.”
“We were more prepared than we ever have been for an event like this,” he continued. “This is what we will be doing from this point on for something of this caliber.”
According to Scott, the ballot machine for Precinct 8 was not functioning. As a result, the ballots for all the races in this precinct were being placed in an auxiliary bin to be hand-counted at the end of the night.
“The computer is not reading the information for the programming, is the best I can put it,” Scott said.
A technician had been contacted to fix the machine, Scott said, though they had to stop for another incident in Worcester before coming to Greenfield. If the machine comes back online, the votes cast after it’s been repaired will be electronically reviewed, while all prior votes will still be counted by hand.
Zack DeLuca can be reached at zdeluca@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 264.