Queens Votes: Races for president (U.S. and borough) galvanize residents across Queens

More than 30 people lined up to vote at P.S.101 in Forest Hills at 8 a.m. Tuesday. Eagle photo by Rachel Vick

By David Brand and Rachel Vick

THIS STORY WILL BE UPDATED THROUGHOUT THE DAY TUESDAY.

Rabbi Yaniv Meirov’s phone wouldn’t stop buzzing Tuesday morning.

Meirov, a Kew Gardens Hills resident, said thousands of his congregants had registered to vote for the first time ahead of Tuesday’s presidential election and wanted more information. 

“All day I’ve been on my phone with people texting or WhatsApping, saying “Where do I go? Where do I vote,” said Meirov, who leads the nonprofit organization Chazaq.

He visited the polling place outside P.S. 164 to talk with other neighbors and to meet with his preferred candidate for Queens Borough President, Donovan Richards.

Richards, a Far Rockaway councilmember, stood near the entrance to the school chatting with constituents as they headed to vote. There were no lines at 1 p.m. — a stark difference from the scene at 18 early voting sites in the borough in the days leading up to the election.

Richards said the experience of voting for himself for Queens borough president felt “surreal,” especially in an election that also featured the race for U.S. president — a contest Queens voters have been gearing up for four years. 

This election was particularly memorable because it marked the first time his father, Donovan Richards Sr., was eligible to vote in the U.S. The older Richards became a U.S. citizen last year.

“To have his namesake on the ballot was special,” Richards said. “I had to lobby him pretty hard because I was a troublemaker in high school, but he came around.”

Richards’ father was one of the 250,083 Queens voters who cast their ballots at 18 polling sites ahead of Election Day. Many stood on hours-long lines to exercise their Constitutional right to vote.

Councilmember Donovan Richards (left), the Democratic candidate for Queens borough president, campaigned with Assemblymember Daniel Rosenthal at a school in Kew Gardens Hills at 1 p.m. Tuesday, eight hours before polls closed. Eagle photo by David Brand

That early voting effort, along with an unprecedented absentee ballot initiative, seemed to shrink the lines throughout the borough Tuesday, compared to elections past — though wait times varied across the borough, depending on the time of day and the location.

At two sites in Ridgewood, Grover Cleveland High School near Maspeth and PS 81Q near Bushwick, voters walked right inside around 9 a.m. 

Around the same time in Forest Hills, more than 30 people stood in a line that wrapped around the block to vote at P.S.101. “I think it’s an important vote, I couldn’t not,” said Forest Hills resident Janice Wright.

Wright said she also wanted to set an example for her 18-year-old son who decided to sit the race out. “He was so disgusted with both candidates he didn’t register or come vote,” she said. 

A group of voters leaves the polling site at P.S. 64 in Kew Gardens Hills. Eagle photo by David Brand

At P.S. 70 in Astoria, the line to vote wrapped around the block at 10:30 a.m.

But at three locations in Elmhurst — P.S. 222, P.S. 89 and Newtown High School — the polls were nearly empty at 8:30 a.m.

The same was true at several sites in Far Rockaway and at least one place in Northeast Queens, according to Eagle readers who answered the call for poll site information.

“Nothing too much to report in NE Queens (Little Neck). My polling place was very well staffed. Not that busy — I was in and out in less than 10 minutes,” tweeted one Queens resident in response to the Eagle’s request. She voted at a site on 61st Avenue near Marathon Parkway and shared a video of the scene.

At the Queens Central Library in Jamaica, the line was slightly longer. Resident Shamin A. Radha said she had been waiting longer than she was expecting to.

“It’s time-consuming, but it is what it is,” Radha said. “The line is moving fast.”