Thom Nickles: A day at the polls

Working the polls on Pennsylvania Primary Day, May 19, pretty much confirmed for me how entrenched Philly is when it comes to far-left politics.

As Minority Inspector of Elections, I checked Voter IDs when people came to vote, but spent the bulk of my time maintaining watch and answering questions near the voting machines. The excessively hot temperatures contributed to the slow turnout, although that was also due to the fact that many people on the ballot ran unopposed. At the end of the day, only 90 people from my particular division came out and voted. 

They came as loners, as couples, with baby carriages, carrying dogs and cats. Many brought their children, mostly toddlers; there were also quite a few infants that entered the voting booth with their mothers. Had I been into statistics, I’d feel confident enough to make some generalizations about how Democrats, Republicans, and the city’s Working Families Party — with largely Democratic sympathies when it doesn’t operate as a completely socialist independent entity — present themselves at the polls.

Young left-leaning women almost always had bare shoulders with much of their backs exposed. The female leftist uniform includes multiple tattoos on legs, ankles, shoulder blades, and in many instances full-sleeve tattoos on one of both arms. They often had a very haughty air, and if they were accompanied by a husband or boyfriend – the latter usually lagging behind while modestly dressed in jeans and a T-shirt – the full-sleeved tattooed woman always seemed to be the one in charge, at least based on her walking hurriedly in front of him as if leading a charge. 

Older, leftist women tended to have short “helmet” hair and long earrings. This style is a leftist classic and comes from radical fashion from hardcore Democrat Socialist West Philadelphia, Powelton Village, and Germantown. 

Returning from a break at one point, I noticed one left-wing couple inspecting a ballot issues poster near the front door. They were examining the ballot with dedicated ferocity. Just before I walked out of hearing range, I heard the man say to his female partner, “Yeah, he’s pro-Palestine!” They then proceeded to vote. 

As the day wore on, I noticed that young progressives – whether ordinary Democrats or the eager communists of the Working Families Party – spent an inordinate amount of time in the voting booth. 

At one point I was truly worried when one couple, both dressed in shorts and flip flops, spent close to 15 minutes in the booth. Did they both have reading problems? The ballot was not that long. The majority of people spent only a few minutes voting.  Finally, when the woman exited first, she went off into a corner where she waited for her male companion who, when he finally emerged, slunk sheepishly over to her where they consulted in hushed tones, both of them looking worried as if they had seen something untoward on the ballot. Or if voting constituted something that actually affected them physically. 

Some people after they voted became decidedly giddy. The degree to which politics has become a religion could be seen in many of these people. Their faces would explode with delight when they were handed those little “I just voted” stickers. When poll staffers would say good-bye to them, some would raise their hands in the air in celebratory ecstasy. Some raised their hands over their heads in the manner of Rocky, that fictional character whose statue now rests inside the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I know from experience that many people get a rush of dopamine after they pull the vote lever, but it was interesting to see extreme examples of this.   

We weren’t allowed to talk politics while working inside the polling station. As you can imagine in 2026, when nearly everything is politics, how do you not do this at least once or twice during a fourteen-hour stint? 

I had the pleasure of meeting Robyn Bird, Republican candidate for the 177th Legislative District, who is running against incumbent Democrat Joe Hohenstein. Hohenstein, an immigration attorney, was first elected in 2018. Bird handles government affairs for Local 22 of the firefighters and paramedics union. Her campaign has stressed public safety, police and fire support, and criticism of the state’s current immigration and economic policies.

Hohenstein, whom I’ve met several times whenever I work the polls, is an engaging individual. He usually shows up with his small entourage; this year he was strangely absent, unless he visited when I took my lunch break. Recently, Hohenstein has become very critical of ICE, like every Philly Democrat, while ignoring the downside of illegal immigration. Like many Democrats, he lumps illegal aliens into the same camp as legal immigrants, and then says he supports “immigration.”     

Hohenstein is very woke on LGBT issues. He has stated he is the parent of a trans/nonbinary child and emphasized the importance of protecting trans kids.

The problem is, what is a trans kid? Would that be a five-year-old? A ten-year-old? Can a ten-year-old know for certain they are trans when they are still debating the existence of Santa Claus? 

“Trans people are human; however, they are too often attacked for being different and not fitting into our society’s rigid gender structures,” Hohenstein has been quoted as saying. 

Bird, on the other hand, has the common-sense view expressed by most Americans: If you are an adult and trans, fine; if you are gay, queer, or a nose-ring rainbow gender non-conformist, fine: just leave the children alone.   

One of my Democrat colleagues working the polls introduced me to Bird.  His graciousness surprised me. 

The day after the primary, I read that Barney Frank had died of congestive heart failure. When I lived in Boston, Frank was just beginning to make the political rounds when he joined the state legislature in 1972.  He was not yet out-of-the-closet as a gay man but he supported the early efforts of the gay rights movement. 

Ironically, reading one of his obituaries, I was surprised to learn that when Frank spoke to NBC10 Boston earlier in May from hospice care, he took aim at woke Democrat priorities and called on the party to step back from social issues like trans rights.

Truly amazing!

“That’s the approach the transgender community should take to male-to-female transgenders playing in women’s sports,” he said. “That’s very controversial. Other issues are, I think more important, but also less toxic, like getting good medical care, guaranteeing that for people, guaranteeing people the right to designate their genders, and they should put off the most controversial.”

That’s almost a full conversion to sanity, sans his allowance for gender designation, but in the total scheme of things what he said is still what Democrats need to hear if they want to win elections.

(Not that I want them to win elections, of course.) 

Thom Nickels is Broad + Liberty’s Editor at Large for Arts and Culture and the 2005 recipient of the AIA Lewis Mumford Award for Architectural Journalism. He writes for City Journal, New York, and Frontpage Magazine. Thom Nickels is the author of fifteen books, including “Literary Philadelphia” and ”From Mother Divine to the Corner Swami: Religious Cults in Philadelphia.” His latest work, “Ileana of Romania: Princess, Exile and Mother Superior,” will be published in May 2026.