Election Eve in the South End

I was walking by the Cathedral High School Gymnasium and noticed Boston Election folks setting up inside. I was very lucky to get permission from the election manager and took these photos.

When you enter the gym, you check in at one of the tables in front and they check your name against the list of registered voters. Then they give you a ballot that you then take to one of these stalls.

I was expecting to see levers and curtains, like you see in the movies but I guess the South End has a more straightforward, no-nonsense approach to voting. The ballots are filled in by hand and once they are all collected, they are fed into an optical reader -- much like the way SAT scores are tabulated (or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire test scores, for that matter).

You're looking at the calm before the storm, people. I hope to take pictures of long lines of voters at the election site tomorrow.