(#reportthevote) (#videothevote) So today am walking around the East Village with the kids in their scooters and a camera crew from CUNY.TV. Michelle Garcia pinged me earlier yesterday asking me if she could follow me around to see what I as a blogger. And I was like, "sure, no problem" not having a clue what it meant.

They've literally have captured almost moment of our walking and talking to friends, neighbors and strangers. We had a miss going to Evan's school --I didn't find a poling place there but we went to Aidan's school because PS 63 which is right next door is one of the main polling places in the area.

While the kids hung out in the recess yard (aka the school playground), I talked to friends and interviewed voters coming out of the polls. Since we couldn't go  with either rolling cameras or  microphones, I walked around the section where they had set up the booths. I saw two interpreters, one for Spanish and the other Cantonese & Mandarin. I spoke to some of the teachers there --they have "professional development day" in days like these.

All the poll workers and teachers voted around 6am and each and everyone of them said there were huge lines, some with hundreds of people and waiting times of up to an hour. This is unprecedented for New York City.

One of the people we spoke to was Jainie Tynes. She's a poll worker and she was telling us of how understaffed they were. They have 6 different voting districts inside the school and 6 poll workers didn't come in to work. So a lot of these people will have to do double shifts and stay until the last vote is casted. Polls close in New York City at 9pm, meaning that if they have 300 people in line at 9pm, they have to stay there until everybody has voted. Not only that, they will have to process all the paperwork and make sure they do due diligence before sending the resuts to the Board of Elections. She said she could see reporting severa thousand votes in that school. Meaning, they could be there until after midnight if the flow of voters keeps coming in as it has been throughout the day.

So if you work for the Board of Elections or know somebody who does, please report this : PS 63 NEEDS POLL WORKERS!

A video with Ms. Tynes testimony will be forthcoming later this afternoon.

Poll site information
As of: 11/04/2008
Poll Site: PS 63
Poll Site Number: M0023
Address: 121 East 3 Street, Manhattan
Voter Entrance: 121 East 3 Street
Handicapped Entrance: 121 East 3 Street