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Berkshire County Election Day 2016
Staff Reports,
04:15PM / Tuesday, November 08, 2016
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A voter signs in at Williamstown Elementary School. Polls are open until 8 p.m. for voting for president and state representatives.

Some 994 votes had been cast in Stockbridge by mid-afternoon, not including early voting. No one was holding signs but we think we spied Gene Shalit leaving the polls.

A cluster of signs in Lee where some 1,900 had voted a little after 3 p.m.

Busy but no waiting in Lee.

Dalton was steady on Tuesday morning.

Cheshire voting was busy - but there were lollipops.

Numbers were racking up in Clarksburg.

Multiple sign holding at Ward 4a in Pittsfield.

Ward 4 is home to both Farley-Bouvier and Connell, who were battling for the 3rd Berkshire seat.


The Finale

The upshot: Adam Hinds won the state Senate seat being vacated by Benjamin B. Downing and state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier retained her seat representing Pittsfield. Both defeated their opponents by wide margins.  

U.S. Rep. Richard Neal will also return to Congress after easily besting two challengers.

Also passing was Pittsfield's adoption of the Community Preservation Act by an impressive vote of 15,331 by 4,169.

The statewide ballot questions were an up and down, with recreational marijuana and the banning of confinement cages for livestock passing; another slots facility and lifting the charter caps going down.

Clarksburg hit 78 percent turnout and Pittsfield 70 percent.
 

Clarksburg Nearing 80 Percent Turnout

Clarksburg is hoping for the highest turnout and was well on its way by a little before 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

Some 884 voters out of the town's 1,137 registered voters had cast ballots. That's 78 percent with still an hour for the polls to close. Town Clerk Carol Jammalo said the traffic had been busy and steady all day, even as more voters came in ones and twos to put their ballots the town's vintage ballot box.

Poll worker Barbara King wrote a little poem about their Election Day, a tradition she's been doing for years.


Barbara King writes poems to remember elections in Clarksburg. On her desk is an illustration by Norman Rockwell of a small-town election.

"This Is Some Election"

The minute the town clerk said
            it's time to vote,
Inside of 10
minutes 15 did vote
            And I quote,
Boy! Are we going to be 
busy.
The ballot box workers will get dizzy.
We have seen people here today
We haven't seen for many a day.
I guess voting for President is more
            Important to do,
Then voting for our town crew.
Everyone is glad this campaign is done
And we'll find out who has won.

 

Adams & Cheshire


Adams election workers wait for more voters to show up. The numbers had eased off by afternoon with the expectation of a rush as people get off of work.

There was a rush of voters in Adams on Tuesday morning but that had leveled off by the midafternoon. Some 2,569 people had voted by 3 p.m. out of the town's 6,000 registered voters.

"It has slowed down a bit but we were busy first thing this morning ... I hope we get more," said Town Clerk Haley Meczywor. "We have five more hours to go, and I think people get out of work at 5 and come down."

Early figures show a 67.9 percent turnout in Adams.

Like many of the polls in the county, Cheshire was also lacking of signs and supporters, but that may pick up at people get out of work.

"I Voted" stickers have been hard to come by but in Cheshire, they were giving out lollipops for casting ballots.

By 3:30 p.m., some 1,295 had voted out of the town's 2,420 registered voters, more than 50 percent.

"It has been very steady today ... last presidential election we had 1,800 people," said Town Clerk Christine Emerson. "I am hoping for 2,000."

Steady Voting in North Adams at 3:30


Trump supporters showed up later in the afternoon.

You wouldn't know it from the lack of signs and supporters, but voting is proceeding at a brisk clip in North Adams. Including some 900 votes cast in early voting, nearly 4,000 people had cast ballots at Wards 1,2,3 & 5 by mid-afternoon, making turnout at least 50 percent so far.

"We haven't had any crazy rushes like we've had before," said election worker Ron O'Brien at St. Elizabeth's Parish.

A cheerful City Clerk Marilyn Gomeau was pleased with how the day was going, and how well early voting had turned out.

"We had a system and it worked like a charm," she said. "Everything is going excellent and we couldn't ask for better weather."

There were occasional lines but nothing longer than about 5 minutes, they estimated. There were, however, more provisional ballots than usual, more than a dozen compared to the one or two. O'Brien said those are given to people who may have moved between wards and their addresses are not current, or who have been designated inactive. But some are by people who think they are registered but are not - and those ballots aren't counted.

One girl came in hoping to vote with her registration card. Unfortunately, she'd registered one day after the deadline. "I felt bad for her," O'Brien said.

Outside, there was a smaller cluster of signs than usual and all for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who is may poised to make history as the nation's first woman president. Despite Donald Trump's Republican primary victory in March, there were no signs or supporters at around 3 p.m.

This upset a woman who asked where the Trump signs were, and who grew angry after the Clinton contingent joked that they had made them move. "You'll be sorry," she seemed to mutter as she made her way to the polls.

That didn't dampen the high spirits of the handful of Clintonites, who also were holding signs in support of Question 3, regarding the confinement of farm animals.

"It's making history, it's the first time in my 60 or so years and in 40 years of voting to be able to vote for a woman," said state Rep. Gailanne Cariddi, who is cruising to re-election with no opposition. "My first election I voted for McGovern, so you know where I am. I'm not being bashful about it."
 
The North Adams Democrat was confident of a glass-ceiling-shattering victory. "I hope she does it more decisively so it kind of puts to rest this rigged election thing," she said.
 

Midday in Williamstown
 

Voters cast ballots in Williamstown.
Turnout was steady but manageable at Williamstown Elementary School at midday. Town Clerk Mary Kennedy reported there was a line when the polls opened at 7 a.m., but it was not as long as some other years, and poll workers have been able to quickly work people through the process.
 
About 17 percent of Williamstown's registered voters (873 of the 5,004 voters on the checklist) voted during the early voting period that concluded on Friday.
 
Kennedy agreed that the high turnout for early voting helped keep the Tuesday turnout numbers more manageable.
 
"So far," she joked, as she cast about in vain for some wood to knock on. "About 6 or 7 o'clock is when it could get interesting."
 
Outside the school, the full parking lot was the only real sign that voting was going on inside. At midday, there were no representatives present campaigning for candidates at the local, statewide or national level. A sign indicating the line past which campaigning was prohibited appeared to be superfluous.
 
Instead of real live campaigners, the only presence for any of the candidates were signs promoting Clinton, state Senate candidate Adam Hinds and Al Terranova, a late write-in candidate for the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee.
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