In Philly’s 8th Ward: Voting gone to the dogs?

PHILADELPHIA — The after-work and before-dinner voting crowd may have left candidates feeling hungry during Tuesday’s primary election in Philadelphia.

In Center City on Tuesday evening, there was a small after-work crowd that attended the polls at the Arch Street First Presbyterian Church located in the 8th Ward of Philadelphia, according to poll worker Lauren Jeandell.

“It has been a little slow today to be honest, not as big of a turnout as we expected, but I think everyone is expecting it to be a pretty close race,” Jeandell told the Capital-Star. 

Voter Ashlee Albertson said she did about three hours of research before coming to the polls and still felt unprepared. 

“It was hard to find really strong endorsements for some of them. Some candidates, especially for Sheriff, didn’t even have platforms that I could look up, some of them were only on Facebook  – I don’t have Facebook, what am I supposed to do?” asked Albertson. 

Albertson voted for former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart for mayor because of her career experience and what Albertson said was her ability to handle both the public and private sectors of the city. 

Alan Atlas brought his voting helper, Tze, a Great Dane, to the polls on Tuesday. Atlas explained there were way too many candidates this year and that it doesn’t help the system in the long run.

“It’s TMI – there is too much information and that is making it difficult to understand what is really going on,” said Atlas. 

Some voters said they weren’t overwhelmed and even found themselves making eleventh-hour decisions. 

“I voted for [former City Councilmember] Helen Gym, it was kind of a last-minute decision, I actually got to meet her briefly at the last mayor debate. She was the candidate who seemed to be the most open to big ideas, which I appreciate,” Michael Steeves told the Capital-Star.