As promised, I have followed up with the Hudson County Board of Elections because many voters complained about the long lines in Newport's GW building during the recent presidential election. First, the back up of voters waiting to vote was largely due to the fact that the poll workers were very slow in signing voters in to the 2 books. The delay was also caused by the fact that there were only 2 books to sign in, one for those with names ending in A to L and the second one for those with names ending M to Z.

One bit of good news to report is that the Superintendent of Elections. Marie Borace, was responsive to the complaints aired by providing a third voting booth at midday. While this helped eliminate part of the delays, it did not completely address the problem. Thus, the answer is to get poll workers who actually live in District 22, which comprises Newport, Avalon Cove and the Marbella and who can work fast by processing voters through. If anyone is interested in being a poll worker, we ask only that you can work fast so we don't have to experience long lines again with waits to vote up to 2 hours. If interested, I have forms. The pay ain't bad at $200 a day that includes breaks, etc. Simply send me an email at rvivien2003@yahoo.com.

One final note - there were a few voters who misplaced blame for the delays in voting to the 2 challengers working that day for the Hudson County Democratic Party. While I can appreciate the frustration at waiting to vote for up to 2 hours, this is clearly erroneous as the time it took to provide your name and address to the challengers for them to check off your name was minimal, about 30 seconds max. I know because I served as one of the challengers as the Democratic Party committeeman in Newport's District 22.

BTW - the Republicans have every right to have their own challenger but simply do not have the resources or support to do this.