Election Day unfolded peacefully in New York City on Tuesday afternoon, with temperatures mirroring summer weather and people taking time out of their busy day to cast their votes.
Police officers were assigned to polling sites across New York City, but there were no reports of election-related violence or protests planned in the afternoon.
Maddie Grussing, 23, who is from London but has lived in the US for five years and works at a law firm, went to a polling site at Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon.
‘I just think it’s just really important to show out and vote and make your voice heard,’ she told Metro.
‘I voted for Kamala Harris. I think she aligns with the direction I want the US to go in. I think sort of at the top of her ticket are things that are very important to me like female reproductive rights and I was super excited to vote for her. First female president.’
Metro’s US news editor Jess Kwong on how her election day unfolded in New York City
New Yorkers woke up to a gorgeous, unseasonably warm 70-degree Fahrenheit Election Day.
Around the lunchtime I went to vote at my polling site which was only a block away from home.
Surprisingly there was no line and I was quickly given a paper ballot and instructions.
A poll worker told me that voters had been coming in spurts and that there are more polling locations spread out across the city, cutting down on wait times.
One police officer was stationed inside the polling site, keeping watch. There were 10 voting booths set up in the room, about half of them unoccupied.
I filled out the bubbles for the candidates and propositions within minutes and fed my ballot into a machine that immediately accepted it.
It was seamless, and seemed like a regular, busy afternoon in New York City. But Election Day was young.
While the day had been calm, Grussing said news reports on events around the country remind her that ‘it can be a scary time’.
‘I think no one’s forgotten the events of four years ago,’ she said, referring to the January 6 Capitol riot when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to try to stop the election results from being certified.
Outside of Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, two rows of barricades were set up, but there wasn’t a visible large police presence in the afternoon. Many tourists waited for pictures with a professional impersonator posing as ex-President Donald Trump. A security guard at the tower did not mind.
‘I’m making hundreds and hundreds,’ said the impersonator, Neil Greenfield, 61, who lives in New York City.
A man walked by and shouted, ‘Go back to Florida, f*****s.’
‘Good day!’ Greenfield responded.
A block south of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, a crowd gathered around a Tesla Cybertruck that was covered in spray paint including, ‘TRUMP’ written across the trunk.
Some people used spray paint left in a box to try to cover the ‘TRUMP’ lettering, but another man soon used red, white and blue spray paint and re-wrote the Republican candidate’s name.
The Cybertruck owner, Boris Vitvitskiy, 47, of Noblesville, Indiana, wore a Trump had and red shirt stating, ‘red state Republican’ with a checkmark on Trump and his vice presidential running mate JD Vance. Vitvitskiy, a doctor, said he participated in early voting in his home state and supported the former president.
‘I brought Cybertruck because I wanted to show support for Donald Trump. The president of our country, the president of the world, Donald Trump,’ he said.
‘I think he’s going to save the world and he’s going to restore balance to this nation and to the would and we’re all going to have long and beautiful lives again.’
Vivitskiy added that he welcomed people of all political views to spray paint on his Cybertruck – the same vehicle that Trump was gifted by a podcaster on the campaign trail.
‘This is like a freedom of speech, think about it this way. Anybody who wants to write something feel free, Harris, Trump, whatever… An election is just a competition, that’s what it is for me,’ he said.
‘This is awesome energy. Only in New York!’
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