This morning, City Room followed the four remaining candidates when they went to vote in today’s underwhelming run-off.
Because there weren’t really any voters (“Turnout Is a Trickle” says the headline), there’s a lot about how the poll workers react to the candidates, so let’s read the tea leaves.
Comptroller candidate John Liu walked into his precinct, and shook everybody’s hand, made a joke, voted, and shook hands with everyone again.
One poll worker raised her fingers, crossed, to wish Mr. Liu good luck. Her ankles were also crossed and he said, “Oh, you’ve got your feet crossed … that’s good.”
Mr. Liu then held court before a throng of Asian media waiting outside.
His opponent, David Yassky, was less relaxed, and less recognized. One of the poll workers asked the Times reporter who Mr. Yassky was. And then another one seemed to play a joke on him:
Mr. Yassky made his way inside the church, where another poll worker told Mr. Yassky it had been a busy day. “Was it really?” Mr. Yassky asked, his eyes lighting up. Several other poll workers said it had not, in fact, been a busy day at all.
Then, as Yassky was leaving, one of the poll workers chased him down to see if the candidate could bring them some coffee.
Among the would-be public advocates, the Times said no one voted in the 15 minutes they spent with Mark Green at a precinct in the Flatiron District, and when Mr. Green rode the subway up to 96th Street, he was immediately greeted by a supporter of his opponent, Bill de Blasio.
In Park Slope, Mr. de Blasio was welcomed by shouts and cheers from supporters outside his polling place.
“There’s nothing like voting at home,” Mr. de Blasio mused as he walked down the sidewalk with his wife, trailed by reporters and photographers. That feeling may have been reinforced a few moments later, when Mr. de Blasio entered a school where voting machines were set up, and was welcomed by poll workers, beaming and clapping.
Mr. de Blasio emerged to photographers and reporters, and then went outside to address his supporters.
On the Upper West Side, poll workers were so bored they were falling asleep. “Runoffs are terrible for the staff. There’s nothing to do, the time just drifts by,” one poll coordinator told the Times. To accommodate voters, the polls will be open until 9 p.m.
