Steady voting, scanner trouble in Manorhaven

Voting was doing a brisk business at Manorhaven Village Hall Tuesday afternoon, with a near-constant line of people waiting to vote.

Of the three optical scanning machines at the site, however, only one was working by 4:30 p.m., said Catherine Lewis, the Democratic poll watcher who was greeting voters at the door.

Lewis said the site had received many affidavit voters from as far away as the Rockaways and Queens.

“This is the busiest it’s ever been,” said Lewis, a veteran elections worker. She said one voter’s car ran out of gas while waiting in line to park, and power was fresh on people’s minds as they queued.

Pat Debari, 69, rode out the storm’s aftereffects with a portable generator, and she said Sandy’s wrath didn’t affect her desire to come out and vote for Mitt Romney.

“I didn’t have any doubt that I was going to go vote,” said Debari, from Manorhaven.

Marvin Harris, 46, of Manorhaven, said his family was without power until last Friday and had to make do with heating the home by boiling water on the stove, but the temporary travails didn’t discourage him from voting, either.

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“I’ve been voting in every election,” said Harris, a truck driver, who cast his vote for Barack Obama. He said his father and grandmother, active in the civil rights movement, had brought him up to recognize the importance of voting.

Even if he didn’t have power or fuel, “I still was going to come here to vote,” Harris said. “I don’t think my grandmother or father would let me rest tonight if I didn’t.”