Evening Update: Heavy Voter Turnout in Glen Cove

As Glen Cove polls prepare to shutdown at 9 p.m., coordinators report a heavy overall turnout and minimal problems with the new voting machines; but residents still seem to prefer the traditional voting machines.

"So voters are still commenting that they like it the old fashioned way, but they are still doing well with the new system," said Kim Rollins, chairperson at the . "If a person has issues with their ballot, or is uncomfortable with the comments when the ballot is fed into the machine, they can get a new ballot. On the other hand one voter commented: 'The machine said thank you. I never had a machine say thank you before.'"

Pam PanZenbeck, poll coordinator at , reported an overall successful Election Day.

"Turnout has been fantastic," PanZenbeck said. "While people used to the older voting methods don't necessarily consider the new procedures progress, even a step back," she said, "nonetheless they feel it's just a matter of getting used to it."

13th A.D. candidate Robert Germino said that he thought the new machines were easy to use.

"The younger generation shouldn't have a problem with it," Germino said. "One person had a problem where he had to reinsert his ballot; but for the most part, everything seemed to run very smoothly. The inspectors were all very polite."

One Glen Cove resident, who asked to remain nameless, did not take well to the new voting machines and said that it will turn people off to voting in future elections.

"There were primarily three things that I didn't like about the new machines," he said. "One, the print on the paper ballot was way too small. Two, the ballot kept spitting out despite having been filled out correctly. Three, total lack of privacy. Anyone with a busybody temperament and good eyesight could see how someone voted."

The resident believes that the new machines are an unnecessary replacement for a system that functioned just fine: "As for the old machines, there was nothing wrong with them. All you did was go into the booth, close the curtain, and pull down the levers. How much more simple can you get than that? And it was completely private," he said. "There was also never a question of significant inaccuracies with the lever machines. I think a strong argument could've been made to retain them."

While resident Peter Holden, whose family owns on School Street, said that the machines were easy to use, he is still skeptical as to whether or not the technology is reliable.

"We shouldn't rely completely on machines," said Holden. "An independent organization should still tally it by hand."