While social acceptance and legal rights may be more widespread than in the 1980s, Theine considers the issues confronting many GLBTQ youth to be no less profound. The parade had been canceled for two years in a row during the pandemic. Underscoring the degree to which the social landscape has changed, some 400,000 people are expected for the Ashley Rukes GLBTQ Pride Parade on Sunday down Hennepin Avenue. This weekend, during the 50th anniversary celebration of Twin Cities Pride, Theine is spending at least eight hours each day manning a Ramsey County Social Services booth in Loring Park, encouraging members of the GLBTQ community and their allies to become foster parents and open their doors to young people who may be struggling with their gender identity or who have faced rejection at home and bullying in school. If he wins again, it’ll be devastating.“It was sort of a feeling of, ‘What kind of place did I come to?’ ” he recalled. Trump, he said, is "not a good president. Like most in line, he was waiting to vote for Biden. 3, it’s going to be so mammothly crowded,” said Price, who was about halfway through the line and had already waited nearly an hour and a half.Īs a Marine, he said it’s ingrained in him to always respect the commander-in-chief, but he doesn’t think Trump is fit for the job. As a person who is partially handicapped and uses a motorized wheelchair, he said voting on Election Day would be even more difficult for him than Monday’s long wait. “My ancestors had to fight to vote,” Ryles said.įrank Price, 69, a former police officer from Wynnefield, tapped his feet to Gospel music as he waited. The women had first gone to a satellite office closer to their West Philadelphia homes, but they said it was even more crowded than Overbrook. She brought two of her neighbors out with her to vote, she said. Crane-Droesch and a few others grabbed the boxes and walked up and down the line serving slices.ĭeborah Ryles, 72, of University City, helped herself to a slice as she sat in a chair near the front. He went on his phone pulled up the website for Pizza to the Polls, a nonpartisan nonprofit that delivers food to crowded polling places across the country and reported a long line to the organization. “I want to make my vote count.”Īs morning turned to afternoon in West Philadelphia outside Overbrook Elementary School, Andrew Crane-Droesch got creative as he endured the wait.Īround 2 p.m., Crane-Droesch, 39, of West Philadelphia, became hungry as he inched slowly toward the front of the line. “It’s a lot of turmoil,” she said of the election.
Ann Cherry, 64, said she’d started at 7 a.m., driving around to three places that had been traditional polling places in the past before she finally made it to Tilden. There was also some confusion about where people could vote. “I just want to vote and get it over with," she said. Almost two-thirds of those requests have been made by Democrats, after President Donald Trump’s false attacks on mail voting soured many Republican voters on the method.Ĭarol Kilgore, 64, said she requested a mail ballot twice, before deciding to go ahead and line up at 8:30 a.m. More than 3 million Pennsylvania voters have requested mail ballots - or about one-third of all registered voters in the state - including about 423,000 from Philadelphia. Starting Wednesday, the satellite offices will be open for voters to drop off mail ballots they already have. Philadelphia in recent weeks opened early voting locations across the city, where through Tuesday, voters can request, receive, fill out, and return mail ballots all in one stop.
Tuesday is the last day voters can apply for mail ballots in Pennsylvania. Mills-Richardson was among the thousands of Philadelphia residents who ventured out on a chilly and rainy Monday to request and cast mail ballots without using the mail. “This is great, and I lived through ’68,” she said, recalling another contentious election year, her voice cracking and her eyes welling with tears as Gospel music blared from speakers on a misty street. While she decried long lines outside Overbrook and elsewhere for early voting in the United States, Mills-Richardson, 70, was grateful her fellow Philadelphians were committed to making their voices heard. That’s when she had arrived at the school, about 11 a.m., with her blue folding chair. The line outside a satellite elections office in the West Philadelphia neighborhood Monday afternoon was even longer than it had been three hours earlier. As Marlene Mills-Richardson walked out of Overbrook Elementary School, having just voted, she felt overwhelmed.
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