Beacon Hill Residents of Ward 5 Visit Polling Spot to Ensure Clinton Vote

Between the hours 12 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. at the corner of Mount Vernon Street and Joy Street, the Hill House Community Center welcomed Beacon Hill residents of the Ward 5 to Precinct 5 to cast their Super Tuesday vote, the environment was quiet, friendly, and mainly democratic.

“Beacon Hill is pretty subdue and pretty quiet during the day,” 15-year Beacon Hill resident and veteran, Larry Remo, said.

Remo was excited to volunteer for the first time and participate in a process that concerns the future of the country he loves.

Republican Gary Shaw, warden for precinct 5, has volunteered at this polling location for four years and said he does so for the neighborhood and people who work and live in the area.

Shaw planned to vote during his lunch break and stated he wished Jeb Bush were still in the running.

“We were just talking about the fact that I think that both parties have gone extreme. Republicans have gone to much to the right and Democrats have gone to much to the left, and the middle crowd which I really think makes up the bulk of America are being disenfranchised by the current voters that are out there right now,” he said.

During today’s sunny afternoon, the vote count was moving up to around 258 votes counted so far for Ward 5 as more voters trickled in, many, unlike Shaw, leaving the old firehouse turned community center pro-Hillary Clinton.

76-year-old Cynthia Alcorn exited saying, “I vote because I believe in voting…if not me who will?”

A longtime Pickney Street resident, Alcorn stated in years passed she would have voted republican however, today, she shifted to democratic and did so with concerns about Bernie Sanders ability to make it through a presidency at an age close to her.

“I think republicans should be ashamed of themselves. I think people have been watching so much reality T.V. that they can’t distinguish what is real life,” she said regarding her reasons for not remaining republican in this election.

In 2008 Hillary Clinton won the Mass. Presidential Primary with 56 percent of the vote, defeating then U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, who received 40 percent.

According to the Beacon Hill Times, the Ward 5 Committee has been politically active lately and on Saturday Feb. 20 elected 20 delegates (10 men and 10 women) for the State Democratic Convention June 4 in Lowell.

Clinton supporters leaving the polls were mainly Beacon Hill residents over the age of 60, with some young professionals popping in every hour.

Tarleton Watkins, an over 60- year-old Beacon Hill resident, was among those who favored Clinton based on her political experience and intelligent solutions to nationwide problems.

“I think she has the best chance of making the economic system work better for all Americans. I think the huge disparities that we see between the very rich and virtually everybody else, can’t go on for much longer…my feeling is that Hillary is much more skilled at bringing really practical political solutions to the problem, “ he said.

Fellow Beacon Hill resident and outspoken democrat, Teresa Scott, stated specific examples that furthered her support for Clinton.

“I really like the fact she is very smart and she rolls up her sleeves. For instance I heard that when the Flint Michigan crisis broke Bernie Sanders made a lot of speeches but she sent two of her aids to Flint and said what can we do to help,” she said.

Boston representative for Donald Trump, Richard Pien, agreed that Clinton was the favorable choice among Beacon Hill residents and a majority of Boston.

“I think she will be very popular in terms of how many votes she gets for the primary nominations because she was endorsed by the mayor Marty Walsh,” he said.

Volunteers said the polls would close at 8 p.m and votes counted immediately after.

Massachusetts was among the 12 states and one U.S territory holding primary elections today. As of 8:30 p.m CNBC posted that the Democratic Massachusetts primary was too close to call while Donald Trump was the projected winner of GOP primaries in Georgia, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Alabama where polls have also now closed.