Voters pack the polls in Buffalo Grove, with focus on the national picture
BY RONNIE WACHTER | rwachter@pioneerlocal.com
Sharon Martini feeds her ballot into the machine Tuesday at the Aptakisic Junior High School polling place. | Brian O'Mahoney~for Sun-Times Media
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BUFFALO GROVE — Cold air and a rainy afternoon appear to be making no difference: Buffalo Grove residents of every demographic poured into voting centers.
The top issue on most of their minds appears to be the economy, voters said, and which presidential candidate has the best chance of improving it. Local issues and races, they added, were less significant of a draw Tuesday.
Amy Knowling, a resident of Buffalo Grove’s Cook County side who cast her ballot at Kingswood United Methodist Church, said there were no matters in the village that concerned her. She came out to vote for Democratic presidential incumbent Barack Obama, and his plan for America’s economy.
“I’m hoping he will finish the job,” Knowling said.
Liz Rickman, an Arlington Heights resident who voted at Kingswood, also said she was focused on the bigger, presidential picture.
“Everything I’m hoping for is in the general sense,” said Rickman, who brought two of her three kids to watch her vote.
At Aptakisic Junior High, on Buffalo Grove’s Lake County side, Klavdia Warman said there was little on her mind in the local races, but a lot on her mind nationally.
“He didn’t have much of a chance,” the Obama supporter said of the last four years. “Hopefully in the next four years, they won’t have as much of an agenda.”
Standing a few feet away from Warman, though, stood one person who cared deeply about at least one local issue.
Having taken the morning off from school, she held in her gloved fingers a handmade sign that read “Please vote for my Dad.”
Hannah Shanes, daughter of Daniel Shanes, candidate for a Lake County judgeship in the 19th Circuit, 3rd Subcircuit, is too young to vote for her father, so she campaigned for him Tuesday morning instead.
“I really wanted to do stuff for him,” she said.
Still a few feet away from Shanes, Warman understood better than many the value of having a vote.
A native of socialist Ukraine, Warman emigrated to the United States in 1979 and became a citizen in 1987.
“You have all the opportunities, you just have to grab them,” Warman said. “It’s what you make of it.”
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