Early-bird voters came in droves to polling sites across the Big Apple Tuesday, forming long lines and waiting hours to cast their ballots.
In Astoria, the busiest polling site in Queens, the queue of voters snaked three-and-a-half blocks around PS 85.
Daniel Bartunek, 40, arrived just before 6 a.m. and waited nearly 90 minutes to cast his vote.
“This is insane. Four years ago, you almost got right in,” he said. “Thank God I got here early. There should be more locations.”
But he said the wait was worth it.
“It’s important to cast a vote,” Bartunek said. “You’re in America — you need to vote. I don’t care who you vote for but do your research.”
Joe Biden supporter Gary Sullivan, 58, said he didn’t want to join the nearly 100 million Americans who’ve voted so far in the unprecedented election. Across the five boroughs, 1.1 million people voted early, according to the Board of Elections.
“I didn’t want to do absentee voting. I’m too old-school,” he said.
Longtime Astoria resident Cathy Kotsis, who lives across from PS 85, said she didn’t expect a huge turnout given the option of early voting during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve never seen this,” she said. “In 30 years, I have never seen it like this.”
Just before 9:30 a.m., voters were able to breeze in and out of PS 290 on East 82nd Street in Manhattan, including Mary, 80, who walked with a cane and recalled her very first presidential election.
“I voted for Jack Kennedy,” said Mary, who didn’t want to give her last name. “My grandmother was Irish Catholic. She voted for him because he was Irish Catholic. I thought that was a sin. She should’ve voted for him for his political stance — for what he meant politically. I voted for him because I believed in him.”
On Tuesday, Mary cast a vote for Biden.
“He is a nice guy. He is going to do the right thing,” she went on.
She added with a laugh, “Kennedy has charisma. Biden doesn’t but he has what it takes to beat Trump.”
Long lines were also spotted at the Park West High School on West 50th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, where dozens of voters were lined up around the block at 6 a.m.
Another line formed at 5 a.m. at Robert Wagner Middle School on East 75th Street on the Upper East Side — which has the most registered voters of any precinct on the East Side. But it moved quickly, a poll worker said.
“When New Yorkers want something, they get it,” the worker said.
In Park Slope, the auditorium of MS 51 on Fifth Avenue had just a handful of voters on Tuesday, looking markedly different from the midterm elections in 2018, when the room was packed.
Later Tuesday, NYPD Chief of Patrol Juanita Holmes said the city had seen a “medium-to-light
turnout”
