Mass. Parents Want Election Booths Removed From Schools

HUDSON, Mass. (AP) - Dozens of parents have signed a petition asking town officials to remove election booths from schools out of concern for terrorism. Sally Morgan cited the potential for terrorists to try to disrupt the Nov. 2 presidential election, as well as the school hostage crisis in Russia earlier this month in a petition sent to the town's Board of Selectmen.

The petition, signed by 125 parents, asks town officials to move polling places to more secure locations such as the town library, fire stations and churches.

Selectman Joseph J. Durant argued that pulling the election booths would rob students of an opportunity to see how democracy works. He also denied a threat to children exists.

"I think when fear and insecurity is introduced into Americans' everyday lives in something as simple and fundamental as this, it is a sad state of affairs," he said.

What she probably fears is students grabbing and voting 100s of ballots like some kind of stupid elementary school stunt. We heard that atleast one school in 2000 had a completely UNSUPERVISED polling place where "kids" went wild. They should have served time. No polling venue should be allowed to operate unless officials can guarantee that it meets a certain level of integrity. What do you want to bet that liberal professors knew exactly what was occuring? Or perhaps even put the students up to their vote fraud? I can just hear the twisted rationale now: "Immigrants" and minorities are "disenfranchised" - we are just helping them... And besides the world is better off with Kery and those people are not allowed to vote either"

Pretty good, I liked your post.

November 2nd is Veteran's Day this year as well, which is a beautiful stroke of poetic justice.

I think IF the terrorists wanted to kill children in this country, it's not going to be at a school, sorry. The town in Beslan is very close to the Chechen border and logistically it was an easier target. However, I give credence to the concept that children are their next targets because of the outrage and shock value.

I have often worried more about places where there are a lot of people massed together. The grade school where I vote does not seem as big as the one in Beslan was described to be, in appearance anyway. I worry more about places like Disneyland and Disneyworld during the summer. Not a good place to take hostages but a terrible place for a plane to crash, if you get my meaning. In this country I think the terrorists are more interested in the large, high-value targets. I would like to add that any child targeted would be a tragedy and any school targeted would be an awful event. I just think the terrorists have already one if we are tiptoing around our lives instead of living them.

Having security at polling sites is not a bad idea. I think there are probably some situations were ordinary citizens can cross paths with someone who inflames them and then all of a sudden there is a hot situation going on. It would be reassuring to have some type of security presence at the polls, or at the schools even. I certainly think it's cool if parents want to keep their kids home as a personal choice on Nov. 2nd. I just hate to see our country become afraid. It is a sad thing.

To all who posted that wondered why kids are in school to begin with - their state is smart for not polling while school is in session.
Personally in my opinion, Senator Kerry is useless as a leader, and if he becomes President, we may as well change the U.S.'s official language to French.
The person in question is not a Liberal Democrat, she's a staunch Republican, which is the minority here in Massachusetts. We are not caving into terrorism, there are several other issues with safety and security that go along with our reasoning. Why wouldn't any level-headed American see that we're putting our children at risk?

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