Pitch for democracy: Ballots cast at Fenway
Historic location popular, as well as reassurance amid unease over mail-in ballots
Sixteen years ago this weekend, Dave Roberts stole the most famous base in Red Sox history and David Ortiz hit the home run that helped launch one of the greatest comebacks in baseball — against the Yankees to boot.
History was made at Fenway Park again on Saturday — though not by the lowly Sox — as Bostonians shut out of the iconic stadium all season due to the coronavirus pandemic returned in droves to cast ballots in the bowels of the century-old ballpark.
“I thought it would be a thrill to vote at Fenway,” said Chris Healey, who came with her daughter, Abby Harnois, to vote in person to avoid the “controversy” surrounding mail-in ballots. “It’s a oncein-a-lifetime deal.”
Hub residents who flocked to Fenway and other locations around the city for the first day of early in-person voting in the general election expressed similar unease with mailin balloting and said they were glad to take advantage of the state’s expanded in-person voting period amid turbulent times.
Judith Hurley said she “wanted to vote as soon as I could,” to make sure her vote “got there in time.”
“I love to vote,” said Hurley, who also voted in-person in the state primary. “It’s a civic duty and a privilege.”
The prospect of casting a ballot in a setting as historic as Fenway Park was such a grand slam that voters didn’t seem to mind the hour-plus wait to fill in their bubbles among the shuttered concession stands and snap photos of the empty stadium. People passed the time reading books, watching Wally the Green Monster trundle around and chatting with friends as they inched up the socially distanced line that stretched midday from the Gate A entrance on Jersey Street all the way around the park and back up Landsdowne Street.
“It’s pretty iconic to come to Fenway Park to vote,” Augusta Hixon Polhemus said as she took a break from reading on her Kindle. “It feels like a historic moment.”
Jane and Mike Jackson cast their state primary ballots at the Boston Public Library.
On Saturday, they stepped up their game by heading to vote at Fenway.
“It’s the most important election of my life and I wanted to make it even more special,” Jane Jackson said.
More than just voting at a “special location in an already unique year,” Mike Jackson said casting his ballot at Fenway Park was also a way to ensure his vote was counted.
“I just like the idea of filling in the bubble myself and seeing it recorded,” Mike Jackson said, adding that it’s “a little less mysterious” than mailing in a ballot.
Across the city, around 50 people stood in line in East Boston outside of the BCYF Paris Street Community Center ahead of its 11 a.m. opening Saturday.
“This is the best way to ensure that my vote is counted,” said Eastie resident Miranda Black, one of those who’d queued up. “There’s going to be so much confusion on election day, and there’s confusion around the mail-in ballots.”
Callie McDermott, who plans to be a poll worker on Nov. 3, said much the same about why she’d come out on Saturday.
“I want to make sure my vote counts,” she said.
Inside, voters meandered patiently though a labyrinth of socially distanced lines in the gymnasium, trotting from table to table as they checked in, picked up their ballots and found empty kiosks, before dropping their votes off and departing through a back door into a small alley.
Within a half an hour of the early voting site opening, the line outside had petered out, with prospective voters showing up alone or in pairs being guided inside as advocates for various perspectives on the ballot questions waved signs across the street.
Karen Wang said she’d normally lean toward voting by mail amid the pandemic, but said she worries about President Trump’s administration trying to get postmarked ballots thrown out.
“I don’t trust them,” she said near the Maverick Square-area polling place. “They’ll definitely try something, so this is the way to go.”