Thoughts on election eve

Tomorrow is Election Day. With only town positions at stake this year, it has been very quiet, a welcome change from the hurly-burly of last year's national election. Here and there about town I've seen signs endorsing candidates, and The Day is doing its part to keep the electorate informed, but on the whole it's a placid scene.

Long election campaigns disturb me, with weeks of television spots played over and over. Couldn't the money these cost be better spent? I know candidates want to get their messages across, especially if some voters remain undecided.

My friend Jim Streeter, who loves to research newspapers of the past, tells me that in the 1890's there were no long drawn-out local campaigns. Each party held its caucus to nominate candidates just one week before the election. The ballots were printed and the next week the election was held. Things were simpler in those times.

I remember the first time I voted. It was in Mystic, after I had married and moved to Groton. We voted in the old District Hall on High Street, which began life as a two-room private school, Portersville Academy. This building has been nicely restored as the home of the Mystic River Historical Society.

In the 1940's the old two-story hall was dingy and dilapidated, but once or twice a year it was opened and used for voting. Boy Scouts also used it for flag storage.

The paint was peeling and the first-floor room was dusty, with heat supplied by an old wood stove. Overhead you could see a large patched spot in the ceiling, a reminder of when it came down in 1849 during an overly-enthusiastic upstairs send-off for California bound gold seekers. But we were there to vote, not to criticize interior décor.

We marked paper ballots in those days and waited for the next edition of the The Day to get the results. But if you lived in New London, when the polls closed you could go to Main Street outside the Day office where results were shown right in the window, printed in big letters on a long roll of paper. A crowd gathered there to watch and cheer their favorites.

Tomorrow in Groton we vote for members of the Town Council and the Representative Town Meeting, which replaced the old-fashioned general town meetings where every registered voter could attend and vote on the questions.

I remember one such meeting in the 1940s in what is now Fitch Middle School. Groton schools were overflowing and the controversial issue was the building of new classrooms. The session was crowded, noisy and confusing, but I had a chance to witness democracy in action.

Our present set-up is much better. And Groton's Municipal Television is providing great information for the voters. The candidates appear on Channel 2, introducing themselves and outlining their views. It's easy to be well-informed this year.

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