In Roosevelt, Long Islanders come out to make sure their voice is heard
Gail Wright, of Roosevelt, came to vote hours before polls closed.
There were no crowds or lines at Ulysses Byas School in Roosevelt by early Tuesday evening, but voters determined to have their voice heard continued slowly trickling in hours before the polls closed.
Seretta McKnight, 67, is a lifelong resident of Roosevelt. A consistent voter, she said she showed up on Tuesday night because “we need to have people in place who are going to represent our interests.”
“We are living in some dangerous, dangerous times,” said McKnight, who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024.
Gail Wright, also a Roosevelt resident who voted Democratic during the past two presidential elections, told Newsday “I just want to make sure my vote counts.”
“I’ve been voting since I was able to [at] 18,” she said. “Every vote counts, so I just want to make sure I come out every time.”
Juli Vonne Edme, a 19-year-old from Roosevelt, voted for the first time in 2024. That year, she cast her ballot for Harris.
She said that, while she didn’t keep up with all of the local races, she wanted to show up to vote because it’s her “civic duty.”
“I was keeping up with a lot of the New York City mayoral elections. I thought I should keep voting, especially because it was my first time voting last year and I thought maybe I should keep doing this,” she said. “It’s a good thing to do because it’s my civic duty and it’s a right that I should exploit all the time.”
Sam Kmack covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and previously worked as a city watchdog reporter in the Phoenix metro area, as well as an investigative journalist at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.
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