Primary Day!

A glorious spring morning for the Pennsylvania primary and the voting is....not really happening.

At least not in the politically active neighborhood of West Mt. Airy.

Took my daughter, a first-time voter, to the polls around 9:30 a.m. -- they opened at 7 a.m. -- and she was 57th of 791 registered voters, almost all of them Democrats. The Greens and Independents outnumber Republicans. Veteran poll watchers, all volunteers for decades, believe there may 14 GOPers, maybe 16 at best in our division.

My daughter was troubled by some of the pecularities of the machine. "Who do I vote for Congress? For state rep?" she asked from the booth.

They're running unopposed, I told her, while being shushed by the poll watchers for aiding a voter in the process.

No choice in the matter in a closed primary and when you live in a one-party city where registered Democrats have a more than six-to-one dominance.

Welcome, my dear one, to voting in Philadelphia.

--Karen Heller