Residents of Union Square gather at polls on Election Day

On Tuesday evening, as the clock struck five outside the Union Square Regals, the line for a new film stretched out from Broadway to Fourth Avenue. But inside 110 E. 14th St., better known to New York University students as “U-Hall” dorms, I waited with one other person to vote for the 2010 midterm elections.

“I’m here to make sure Paladino is cut short,” said Audrey Hayes, 47, a former seminar speaker who is currently unemployed.
The next voter didn’t walk in until twenty minutes later.

“I’m voting for Jimmy McMillan,” laughed Andrew Shang, 20, a student at NYU. “I was there too,” Shang said as he pointed to my Huffington Post bus wristband. He unzipped his red jacket to reveal a T-shirt from Jon Stewart’s recent rally at Washington D.C.

Coming from a small town east of Los Angeles, the youth doesn’t get involved with politics. It was comforting to see someone my age in a dorm lobby that I wasn’t used to seeing adults in.

But even from where I’m from, there is conflict and dilemma during campaign season every year. But New York made the poli-drama a bit more provocative. Carl Paladino, the Republican nominee for New York governor came under harsh criticism after his negative comments towards the gay community. Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High party came under media spotlight after he made fiery remarks during the gubernatorial debate a couple weeks ago.

The line to the polls quadrupled as the clock approached six and voters started returning from their work. Patricia Simon, 47, a poll worker, cleared the table as a small crowd began forming. Simon had been there since 5 a.m. and expected to stay until midnight. “Just because it’s a new system we have to double check everything,” she said.

This election’s new voting system procedure uses computerized scanner over the traditional levers. “I didn’t sleep at all last night because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to wake up this morning,” said Clarisse Ghabour, 50, another poll worker, who also claimed that the new procedures made her a little nervous.

Ghabour wasn’t the only one that was feeling uneasy. I’m not a politics-junkie and I don’t follow politics as often as I should. But there’s other things that make Election Day exciting for me. Being a Union Square resident means I have to share my front yard with all of New York City. Election Day is the one day that actual Union Square residents come together. I swear there was a sense of camaraderie Tuesday night, even in the small numbers.