By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — A poll of volunteer workers at one of the town’s voting districts Tuesday produced a big win for civic engagement.

Volunteers at polling stations at the town’s nine districts kept voting procedures humming, under the supervision of moderators, from before polling stations opened at 6 a.m. until after they closed at 8 p.m.

At Coleytown Middle School, where voters in Districts 3 and 8 cast ballots, many of the poll workers were first-timers.

One of those, Kerry Foley, said voting there proceeded smoothly throughout the day, with a noticeable influx of voters new to Westport, who had more questions than usual about some procedures.

Many seemed particularly perplexed by the non-partisan candidates running for seats on the Representative Town Meeting, she said.

Another freshman poll volunteer, Ellen Wentworth, said things went “swimmingly,” and decided to pitch in at the request of Democratic Registrar of Voters Deborah Greenberg. Wentworth agreed, describing her Election Day stint at the polls as her “civic duty.” 

Second-time poll worker Jude Smith said balloting at the polling station seemed “calmer” this year than last year, when fears of contagion from COVID-19 appeared more pronounced among voters.

Marilyn McCarthy, a veteran with 15 years’ service volunteering at the town’s polls, agreed with her colleagues that voting at the Coleytown polls proceeded smoothly.

She said there were roughly 100 voters casting ballots every hour throughout the day, with the exception of noontime, when it peaked at about 200 voters for an hour.

McCarthy said she keeps returning to the Election Day job because she “loves the atmosphere, and it’s a great group of poll workers.”

Late Tuesday afternoon, found a group of politicians pressing their last-minute arguments with voters outside the District 4 and 5 polls at Greens Farms Elementary School.

They included Democratic candidates Johnathan Steinberg, vying for the first selectman slot, and Danielle Dobin, incumbent chairwoman of the Planning and Zoning Commission, looking to be re-elected. 

Voting this year was different from past elections, Steinberg remarked.

 “It’s a COVID election in many ways,” he said. He cited “an extraordinarily high number of absentee ballots,” and a steady but small stream of voters throughout the day, instead of the usual surges at early morning, midday and evening, typical of earlier elections when many people were at their jobs the rest of the day.

Steinberg said he was concerned about low turnout because with the number of Democratic voters registered in Westport at a better than two-to-one ratio over Republicans, a high turnout would be expected to favor Democratic candidates. 

“I expect it to be close,” he said. “Local elections matter up and down the ticket.”

Ann Glaser, moderator of the District 4 and 5 polls at Greens Farms, agreed that voting patterns this year did seem different than other election years, with people coming and going all day.

By 5 p.m., about 50 percent of the total number of voters registered in the two districts balloting at Greens Farms had been cast, she said. “I was expecting a lower turnout, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised.” 

Ian Warburg, chairman of  Save Westport Now, was also at the Greens Farms polling stations. He said although the SWN group is non-partisan, he was there to support the Democratic team. The party had cross-endorsed the three Democratic P&Z candidates on its ballot line.

“I’m here to support these candidates,” he said referring to Steinberg and Dobin. “This is a group of candidates who are good stewards of our town.”

Dobin thought that voting was going well so far. Election Night “is always exciting,” she added.