Holding a Clinton flyer as Obama supporters chanted near the Reading Terminal Market, Quillen said he was registered to vote in West Oak Lane, but had no way of getting there.
Disappointed that the candidates hadn't spoken about issues relevant to the homeless, he said he still would have voted for Clinton - if only someone had given him a ride.
"Women care more about what's happening in the world than men," he said. "Let's see what women can do."
So heartened was the stirred electorate that people seemed to come out of nowhere wanting to vote - needing to, to hear folks tell it.
"They're motivated to do this," said Darryl Lee, standing in front of a polling place in a no-name barbershop in West Philadelphia's Carroll Park neighborhood.
Referencing the steady stream of voters, Lee said he was seeing a mix of long-forgotten faces and plenty of new ones.
Lee, a 55-year-old poll inspector, wore an "Obama '08" button on his plaid jacket. He said he identified with the man's message of change. And change would be good, he said.
These days, people are compelled to leave the neighborhood just to buy basic items. "It didn't used to be that way," he said.
Voting everywhere was spirited, even at the firehouse in heavily Republican Ridley Township.
"I think Hillary has a lot of girlfriends," said Marion Devlin, a minority judge and a Democrat, who noted that many GOP women had changed their registration to vote for Clinton.
"I told my wife it might be the only chance she has to vote for a woman for president," said Republican election judge Ray Bunting, 66.
As balloting progressed at the Folsom Fire Company, things got even more heated. A loud fire siren went off and a large column of black smoke rose above the nearby Siter Square neighborhood.
Volunteer firefighters, summoned by the alarm, flooded the firehouse as startled voters looked on. The firefighters then rolled their trucks to the blaze, which had destroyed a single-family home.
No one was hurt, but for a few moments, the immediacy of a true emergency disrupted the rhythms of a seminal day.
Sure, people yesterday had to sidestep adversity to vote. But such was their need to participate in the democratic process that even the economically fortunate citizens of Jenkintown risked schmutz on their well-heeled shoes to mark a ballot.
Voters coughed their way through the dust in the construction zone outside the polls at the high school.
"People are finding their way," said Theresa Cooper, a Democratic poll worker.
In the less tony precincts of North Philadelphia, voters faced a different set of impediments: a trio of dragonlike papier-mache masks hanging over the polling booths at the offices of Congreso de Latinos Unidos, a Latino nonprofit.
The traditional Puerto Rican totems, sharp-toothed and fierce, didn't frighten 18-year-old Sarah Gaston, nine months and three days pregnant. Poll workers applauded when she revealed it was her first-ever vote.
"Obama and Hillary are bringing the truth back, and they promise better things," said Gaston, who wouldn't reveal her choice. "I just had to come out and vote.
"I felt like this was important. You know what I mean?"
Contributing were Inquirer staff writers Jeff Gammage, Kia Gregory, Jennifer Lin, Nancy Petersen and Mari A. Schaefer.
at 215-854-4969 or alubrano@phillynews.com.
