Voters turn out in big numbers across Delco for historic midterm
Call it the SWARTHMORE >>
Trump Effect.
At polling place after polling place, voters lined up in the rain Tuesday in a midterm election where turnout eclipsed anything in recent memory.
Unofficial results on Tuesday night showed that about 59 percent of Delaware County’s 402,804 registered voters went to the polls.
The rainy, damp conditions did not seem to dampen the enthusiasm of Delco residents lined up to vote Tuesday morning. Polling places across the county reported higher than normal turnout for the midterm elections.
Tuesday was historic as voters elected the county’s first woman to Congress, Democrats Mary Gay Scanlon.
At Swarthmore Borough Hall, voting was heavy, with people already in line when the polls opened at 7 a.m. By 7:10 the line moved out the door. One voter cursed to himself and said, “I didn’t think it would be this long,” and left to get to work before casting his ballot. He hoped to return at the end of the day.
Swarthmore was a center of attention as Scanlon arrived there to vote with her family. A gaggle of press followed. One unhappy voter tried to push photographers out of the lobby until an election worker told him to be civil and that the press was permitted in the lobby.
Scanlon waited 25 minutes to vote.
Outside the polling place, Daniel Kim, a cousin of Scanlon’s Republican foe Pearl Kim, joked with Scanlon about voting for Kim.
“I normally vote independent, but I’m out here helping my cousin,” Kim said. “It’s been good working with the Republicans, we all need to work together.”
At Glenolden School things were quieter as poll watcher Carl Balis instructed voter Walter DeShields to make sure to vote for the congressional candidate twice - once in the special election to replace Pat Meehan in the
7th District seat, and again in the newly constructed
5th District seat. Meehan resigned his seat in late April amid reports he used taxpayer money to settle a harassment complaint filed by a former aide. The
7th seat has been vacant since.