A Child’s Take on the Mayoral Election

Dear Diary:

Overheard recently as three little girls about 5 to 7 years old â€" all strawberry blondes â€" walked with their babysitter on West 73rd Street and discussed the mayoral election.

“Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t want to be mayor any more,” the one in round rimmed glasses told the two others in an exasperated voice, as if it were the third time she’d had to explain it. “He wants a new job.”

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New York Today: To the Polls

Left, Chang W. Lee/The New York Times; right, Seth Wenig/Associated Press The campaigns of the two candidates will keep an eye on early turnout.

It’s finally here â€" Election Day.

It might not feel exactly suspenseful to you, but imagine, for a moment, being part of a mayoral campaign.

We asked the City Hall bureau chief of The New York Times, David W. Chen, what the candidates’ advisers will be watching today.

Mr. Chen told us that the campaign of the Democrat, Bill De Blasio, who is well ahead in the polls, will scrutinize early voter turnout in areas where he expects to perform well.

Those include the Upper West Side, brownstone Brooklyn, and minority neighborhoods from the Bronx to Central Brooklyn.

“If there’s any sense that the numbers are soft, you’ll see them redoubling their efforts on phone calls and social media,” Mr. Chen said.

Joseph J. Lhota, the Republican, will be leaning on areas affected by Hurricane Sandy: Staten Island, South Brooklyn and the Rockaways.

Those have been Republican or swing areas in the past.

Mr. Lhota’s campaign lacks his rival’s “sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation,” Mr. Chen said. “So it will be harder to track how they think things are going today.”

Around 1.1 million voters are expected to cast ballots, or less than 25 percent of those eligible to vote.

Here’s what else you need to know for Tuesday.

VOTING

Polling places are open in the city from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Check your voter eligibility or polling site.

Or call: (866) VOTE-NYC or (212) 868-3692

The Times has a voter guide.

Call 311 to report problems at the polls. Or try (212) 822-0282, a hot line run by the New York Public Interest Research Group and Common Cause/NY.

WEATHER

Fall-appropriate weather continues. Chilly but sunny, with a high of 53. No excuse not to vote.

COMMUTE

Subways: Click for latest status.

Rails: Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Alternate-side parking is suspended for Election Day.

COMING UP TODAY

- Mr. Lhota rises early to greet voters at the 86th Street subway stop in Manhattan with his old boss, Rudy Giuliani. He casts his vote at Congregation Mount Sinai, in Downtown Brooklyn. His party’s at the Gansevoort Hotel in Greenwich Village.

- Mr. De Blasio votes at the Park Slope library at 9 a.m., then greets voters in Crown Heights. He awaits results at the Park Slope Armory.

- An exhibition of Venetian glass, by one of its great modern blowers, opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

-  Wired Magazine kicks off a two-day conference at 4 p.m. exploring the role of data in health care. [Sold out. But you can watch the livestream here.]

-  Local veterans dispel misconceptions about the Vietnam War with their personal stories at the New York Public Library. 6 p.m. [Free]

-  A Times critic and a music producer discuss the work of a photographer who shot iconic covers of your favorite albums for Columbia Records. The Strand at 7 p.m. [$15 or buy the book]

-  The playwright Eve Ensler speaks with the writer Bell Hooks the New School. 5 p.m. [Free]

-  “At Night We Walk in Circles.” Or go hear Daniel Alarcon read from his new novel, of the same name, at Book Court in Brooklyn. 7 p.m.  [Free.]

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

AND FINALLY…

On Election Day in 1855, this newspaper dispatched reporters to every corner of the city.

They reported brawls. Ballot boxes overturned. At least one stabbing.

A police lieutenant’s finger was “severely bitten.”

It was deemed unusually peaceful for that era.

“We got over it luckily without a row worthy the name,” The Times reported.

“The cursing, betting, drinking, and ruffianism of the big rowdies were allowed to pass without the guardians of the public peace deeming it necessary to make any arrests.”

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.

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