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Low Turnout in City of Reading, Campaign Street Money Abounds

By Keegan Gibson, Managing Editor

Luckily for Chris Conroy, it’s been fairly warm today in Reading. It’s stayed above 50 degrees most of the day, and it sprinkled a little bit before but the rain has held off.

From left to right: Chris, Saint and Tre

Conroy, 22, is one of a number of young men in the Latino neighborhoods of Reading, handing out campaign literature near polling places for today’s special election to replace State Senator Mike O’Pake. He wears a button for Democrat Judy Schwank and has a pile of her literature nearby.

Standing nearby and chatting with Conroy are Tre Millard, 18, and Saint Sanchez, 20. They’re wearing stickers for Republican Larry Medaglia.

It’s a good way to make money in a city where many of their contemporaries are out of work. They too are unemployed or underemployed and getting $100 for the day, according to Conroy.

“It’s an opportunity to make a little bit of money, so we came out here to make a little bit of money for ourselves and encourage people to vote,” he said. “They needed more people, so they came to us because they knew we didn’t have any jobs.”

Giving out “street money” is a fairly common campaign tactic, especially in highly urban areas like Reading’s Latino precincts. Young men like these could be spotted at a number of polling places across the city today.

Chris, Tre and Saint chat outside the Southern Middle School, Reading precinct 3-2. They say they’ve barely seen anyone there all day, something that’s confirmed by a poll worker inside. 101 votes cast so far, he says at 6:30, out of 1,274 voters in the precinct. That’s about 8 percent.

“As you can see, not a lot of people have come. Not a lot of people has taken nothin,’ Conroy said.

That’s lower than the 2010 primary when 182 people voted, says another poll worker. They say about 20 percent turned out in the 2009 municipal primary. 30 or 35 of the 101 voters have been Latino, and they have a translator present to make sure everyone is able to vote.

That mirrors unofficial reports from both parties that turnout across the city of Reading has been low today, less than 10 percent. It’s something that gives Democrats cause to worry and Republicans cause to hope, as the final minutes tick away from this election day.

At about 5pm, according to local radio station WEEU, turnout was estimated to be at 10 percent across the 11th district.

Reading’s suburbs, Exeter, Cumru and Muhlenberg, will likely make the difference. If turnout there is disproportionately high, and Medaglia captures a high enough percent of the vote, Republicans believe they’ll have enough to carry their candidate over the finish line.

It would be a major come-from-behind victory for Medaglia, a clear underdog today. His campaign pulled TV ads over recent days, and operatives from both parties talk about poll numbers strongly in Schwank’s favor.

If Schwank carries the victory tonight, she will celebrate alongside Democrats from Berks County, Harrisburg, Philadelphia and elsewhere. Her two staging locations have been full of students, union members and other volunteers making last-minute phone calls to voters and knocking on Democrats’ doors in the city.

A similarly robust effort on the part of the Medaglia campaign will reportedly carry them to over 10,000 doors and phones today alone.

It will be just a few hours before the final tally is known for all, but it will be much longer before this city will know whether the winning candidate is able to deliver on his or her promise to create jobs.

For now, back at Reading 3-2, Chris, Tre and Saint are happy enough to have their job even for one day.

“It’s only bad when you don’t get paid,” Conroy said. “We’ve had the represenatives, you know, whome and do the counts. We’ve mentioned to them that we’re expecting to get paid. They kind of just ignore it and just walk away. So we just don’t know.”

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