Long lines, big turnouts, first-time voters mark Montgomery County Election 2024 [Photos]

Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija said he enjoys riding in the county’s new “Voter Van” because “everywhere we go, we see people we would not see otherwise.”

He did not expect to meet voters from Zimbabwe.

But that’s what happened when he met first-time voters Tatiana Mwaramba and Lloyd Shoriwa in the parking lot of the Lower Pottsgrove Township building Tuesday morning.

The couple had come to submit their ballots at the mobile voter outreach van after seeing the planned Election Day locations on Facebook.

“I think this is a really good idea,” Shoriwa said.

Both immigrated to the United States from Zimbabwe and became U.S. citizens in 2020.

“I think it’s important for every one to vote,” Mwaramba told Makhija. “It’s our country, and its our future.”

Sometimes it takes a first-time voter from a country not known for its electoral freedoms to appreciate the rights enjoyed by voters here.

And there were a lot of people exercising that right Tuesday. A steady, often lengthy stream of voters flocked to the polls Tuesday for what some were calling the most important election of a lifetime.

Long early morning lines gave way to lulls in some places, but in others, lines that were just as long, taking an hour or more to finish.

More than 1,000 had already voted by 1 p.m. in the two voting precincts that vote at Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School.

“I vote every year, but especially this year,” Judy Lupas said as she waited.

But at least she was able to listen to music while she stood in line. That’s thanks to a new feature added to polling — a D.J.

Martelle Pitts has been a DJ for 20 years, but this is the first time he has spun tunes at a polling place. Pitts works for a non-partisan organization called, appropriately, DJs at the Polls.

“I had to go for an interview and everything before I got hired,” he said as Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” boomed out of the speakers.

He said he would make several stops before his day is done, entertaining voters standing in line.

The line was even longer, making a giant U in the main hallway opposite the gymnasium at Pottsgrove Middle School, Upper Pottsgrove Township’s only polling place. By 1 p.m., more than 1,000 people had already voted there.

The same was true in New Hanover.

Although you might not have known by the absence of a line at the New Hanover Evangelical Lutheran Church Tuesday afternoon, township supervisor and Republican election volunteer Kurt Zebrowski said earlier in the day, the line went out the door and around the corner of the building, with more than 900 people voting there.

There was no absence of a line at the New Hanover Fire Company. There, two voting precincts cast their ballots and the line for both was out the door, with each precinct already racking up more than 500 votes by 1:30 p.m.

Back in Pottstown, the vote tally of more than 450 by 2 p.m. was among the larger turnouts clocked at mid-day at that location.

There Hill Schools students Matt Dalkiewicz and Josh Bala awaited to be told how to cast their very first ballots.

“I’m not too political,” Bala said, indicating he had only recently made up his mind.

If you’ve had about enough of elections, you can help remove signs of the long road to Nov. 5 by removing campaign signs.

The Montgomery County Recycling Office is reminding residents that the drop-off recycling program for campaign yard signs will be running again this year from Wednesday, Nov. 6 until Wednesday, Nov. 13. Instead of putting yard signs in the trash, they may be brought to 17 sites across the County for recycling.

Locally those sites include: Collegeville Borough Municipal Building, 491 E. Main St., Collegeville; Douglass Township Recycling Center, 108 Municipal Drive, Gilbertsville; Lower Providence Township Public Works Facility, 500 Church Road, Eagleville; Lower Salford Township Municipal Building, 379 Main St., Harleysville; and Skippack Township Building, 4089 Heckler Road, Skippack.

Accepted materials are paperboard and plastic (corrugated and film) yard signs and metal stands.

“Campaign yard signs are either paperboard or plastic with a metal stand,” said Veronica Harris, recycling manager for Montgomery County. “Plastic signs and metal stands cannot go into the regular curbside recycling. They can either go in the trash or be brought to a collection site for recycling. Curbside recycling is only for paper and packaging such as metal and plastic food, beverage and household product containers. Metal stands and plastic signs will be pulled out of the recycling processing line for curbside recycling as contamination. The signs from the county collection sites will be sorted by material before they are sent for recycling so that they can be successfully processed into new products.”

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