Happening now

Long Island Point

Suffolk BOE turns it out; Nassau, not quite ready

For all the white-hot interest in this year’s presidential contest, voter participation was lagging Tuesday behind Barack Obama’s first race in 2008, at least in Suffolk County.

Turnout in Suffolk as of 5 p.m. was 50.8 percent of registered voters, compared with a turnout rate of 54.1 percent at the same point in 2008. Obama’s 2008 race against Sen. John McCain was the high-water mark for voter participation in Suffolk.

Anecdotally, Nassau officials say the county was also lagging behind the 2008 breakout numbers. But Nassau could not provide the charts and periodic updates on turnouts like its sister county to the east.

Above is a screen grab of the Nassau Board of Elections website.

Michael Dobie

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Election Point

I VOTED and I didn’t get a sticker

With a possible record of 3 million voters in New York City Tuesday, the denizens who invented the New York minute are not happy.

The day has seen excruciatingly long lines at many spots, especially in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The New York Public Interest Research Group, which has led the fight on voting reform, says it has gotten reports of waiting times as long as three hours. The patronage pit known as the city Board of Elections has been plagued by late openings, broken machines, the wrong ballots sent to locations, missing voter records and poll workers who can’t get the job done.

For the most part, Long Islanders found some lines and a few glitches, but overall, a smooth process. There was outrage, nonetheless. Nassau and Suffolk counties do not dole out “I Voted” stickers, a national craze in the era of selfies, Instagram and Facebook. For millennials raised on cute sticker books, this is disgraceful.

And, to give credit where it’s due, NYC voting precincts had plenty of stickers . . . even giving extras to children who accompanied their parents.

Rita Ciolli

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Presidential Point

Reading the tea leaves

So who is going to win the White House? By Tuesday evening, any tidbit sufficed. Here are some readings of the tea leaves:

• The Dow Jones industrial average ended the day up 73.14 points. In the past five elections, Democrats have won the White House every time the Dow closed up on Election Day (1996, 2008, 2012), and Republicans claimed the presidency every time it ended lower (2000, 2004).
• Votecastr is offering a mobile app that gathers real-time information on who voted in precincts in seven states, in conjunction with other polling, to make minute-to-minute predictions on outcomes. At 6 p.m., the data favored Hillary Clinton to coast to a reasonably easy victory. It had Clinton up by 5 points in Wisconsin, 3 points each in Pennsylvania, Colorado and Florida, and 1 point in Nevada. It had Donald Trump up by 1 point in both Iowa and Ohio.

Lane Filler