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Voters stop by, sign up and move on
By BRADY DENNIS, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- This is how democracy works on a perfect Monday night in autumn: Poll workers Gloria Jones and Orland Eggleston sit under a blue sky at dusk outside the public library on Ashley Drive. They are dressed in red, white and blue at a table draped in red, white and blue cloth. They've tied three balloons to the table. Red. White. Blue. It's the last day for voters to register for the Nov. 5 election, and like workers at public libraries all over town, Jones and Eggleston are trying to recruit each passer-by. They get mixed results. "I don't believe in voting," says one woman. "I can't vote," says another man, who they speculate has a felony conviction. Then there are those like Hillery Cunningham, who parks right on Ashley Drive and races to fill out her form before a tow truck arrives. "I was just driving by and saw this and assumed it was the last night," she says, explaining why she stopped to register a new address. "(Voting) is the only way you can make a change." Library regular Carline Banatte, fresh off studying for an online college class, also stops by the table on her way out. "I just moved here from New York a month ago," Banatte says. "I'm glad they're here because I didn't know it was the last day" to register. Jones and Eggleston rope in about 20 people before the sun falls from the sky. Still more than an hour to go. "We like to see the system work," Jones says. But it is Florida -- humid and bug-ridden -- and the two poll workers talk of moving "the system" to the air-conditioned library. "We're waiting for the first mosquito bite," Jones says. "Then we're moving inside."
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From the Times |
