The line of voters stretched well out the doors when this photo was taken about 6 p.m. last Tuesday.
Photo: Josh McPhail
By Lee Burnett, submissions editor
Voting proceeded smoothly Nov. 5, much to the relief of election officials.
“We got them in, we got them out. It was a smooth operation overall,” City Clerk Sue Cote told the Sanford City Council Tuesday evening.
The anxiety level was high going into the election because of partisan tensions over the presidential election and because of fears of a backlash from some voters upset with the consolidation of voting locations from three to one.
Cote had made sure additional voting booths and additional staff were brought in. Deputy warden Lori Black had prepped poll workers to keep their cool if confronted by disgruntled voters. Hundreds of voters cast absentee ballots or voted early at City Hall. On Tuesday, some voters were apparently so eager to avoid unpleasantness that they started arriving by 5 a.m., two hours before polls opened at Sanford High School and Regional Technical Center.
When polls opened at 7 a.m., the line stretched out the door to the football field, according to deputy warden Ed Cormier. “We had that line completely gone by 8:15,” he told city councilors. The longest wait was about half an hour, he said. Cormier said he received “good comments” from the poll watchers. He attributed the smoothness of the process to extensive planning. “The hours we put in to putting it together, I think, paid off.”
One incident passed with barely a ripple. A phone call to the Sanford School Department of “an active shooter” at the high school was so quickly investigated and debunked as a nationwide swatting prank that Cote didn’t even realize the School Department had issued an alert until hours later when she received a text from a family member. It had no effect on voting, she said.
The biggest concern from critics of the consolidation of voting locations was that some voters were deterred from voting because they lacked transportation. The city clerk’s office had mailed postcards to all registered voters about the voting change and included notice that York County Community Action Corp would provide transportation to anyone requesting it. Only 12 people took advantage of the transportation offer. In an interview Wednesday, City Councilor Jonanthan Martell said he thinks notice of the bus service was inadequate and he remains concerned about what he considers voter suppression.
“Probably some people didn’t vote because they didn’t have transportation,” he said.
Martell raised numerous other concerns at the council meeting, including a charge of “double counting of ballots,” which was strongly disputed by Cote. “That is one hundred percent unfounded,” she said in a telephone interview. She explained that the unofficial tally in the House District 141 race between Democrat Patty Kidder and Republican Luke Lanigan was corrected after “human error” was discovered. “I take a lot of pride in what we do. No laws were broken, there was no tampering of ballots.”
Two other councilors praised the smooth voting process. Bob Stackpole spent some time at the polls in the early afternoon and later posted his satisfaction on Facebook. Mayor Becky Brink congratulated Cote at the City Council meeting.
“Sue, thank you for a tremendous job. It was excellent. It went very smoothly,” she said.
