That’s why teacher Kim Walker, 39, was sitting on a bench outside the polling place at the bocce court at Marconi Plaza. She was scrolling through news articles for a crash course on the down-ballot races. ”You’ve got to look up who these people are, we don’t know them,” said Walker.

For Sam Bansner, 34, who voted for North Philadelphia Democratic State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta. the down-ballot races matter. ”I vote in all primary elections,” said Bansner, outside his polling place in Dickinson Square Park. “There’s always an important race.”

That obviously was not a unanimous sentiment among the electorate. For whatever reasons, said Nicole Anderson, 43, a poll worker at Richmond Elementary School, where only 23 voters had shown up by 6:20 p.m.

”Even for a primary it’s been really, really slow,” Anderson said. “I think people feel like the candidates are already selected, so there’s not big decisions in the primary maybe.”

In West Chester, Virginia Davis said she voted for very personal reasons. Her mother, Shirley Davis, was a local election judge, and always said every election matters, big or small, primary or general.

“Plus, if I didn’t vote,” Davis said, “I’d be afraid she’d come back and haunt me.”

____

(Inquirer staff writers Jake Blumgart, Jesse Bunch, Ximena Conde, Nate File, Beatrice Forman, Rita Giordano, Zoe Greenberg, Maddie Hanna, Lynette Hazelton, Max Marin, Erin McCarthy, Michelle Myers, Jason Nark, Mike Newall, and Henry Savage contributed to this article.)

©2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. Visit at inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.