BURLINGTON — By 5 p.m., 2,780 voters had visited the polls at Edmunds Middle School, up only a few hundred from the noontime total.
At Fletcher Free Library, about 1,000 voters had cast ballots, also several hundred more than where things stood five hours earlier.
The totals were not record numbers for in-person votes, but officials said they were remarkably high, given the number of mail-in ballots that have already been counted.
At Edmunds Middle School, first-time poll worker Christie Howell said the 5-10 minute lines that voters might have seen in the morning died down to no wait at all the rest of the day.
“It wasn’t too long; it was moving steadily,” Howell said. “Folks were spread out, but it wasn’t snaking outside or anything.”
Keith Pillsbury, the Ward 8 clerk, said that, in the afternoon, he started to see a lot of college students come to the polls at Fletcher Free Library — including many unregistered voters. He said the only lines he saw all day was a small backup of people waiting to get registered to vote so they could cast their ballots.
But, he said, the lack of lines may be in part because many of the student voters living in his district are likely voting elsewhere.
“These voters have a choice,” Pillsbury said. “They can vote here in Burlington or they can vote at home — and a majority of university students tend to choose to vote at home because they’re more familiar with the people there.”
— Ellie French
