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We've been voting in Manhattan for nearly a decade. At three different polling places over the years. And in countless elections — we vote in everything: primaries and generals, federal and state and local. But we've never before seen anything like the craziness going on today in front of our current polling place, the Lesbain, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center on West 13th Street. (We love that we vote there, mostly because we imagine it's Karl Rove's worst nightmare: That someone has to be surrounded by the gays in order to vote.)

So what's going on in front of the Center?

There are representatives from virtually every candidate in every race handing out flyers all up and down 13th Street, from the young twink in tight Diesels campaigning for Ellner to the old lady in sensible shoes handing out brochures for Markewich. (Or was it for Moskowitz? Markowitz? Whatever.) We've never seen anything like this, not in the vicious Greeen-vs.-Ferrer primary four years ago, not in the dear-God-we-might-actually-win presidential election last year. Given, though, that the mayoral candidate will lose to Bloomberg, that borough presidents don't actually do anything, and that no one will ever remember who the rest of them are, we suspect that this is like what they say about academic politics: The battles are so intense because the stakes are so small.

Speaking of an intense battle: There was even one genuine candidate amid the phalanx of aides and volunteers on 13th: Brian Ellner, the gay dude running for borough president. On one hand, this was fantastic: We got to shake his hand, we got to take a second glance at his cute butt, and we even got to say something to him, which is more than his partner Simon got to do in the much-ballyhooed look-I-have-a-boyfriend TV ad. (Really, a gay lover hasn't been so dutifully silent in a New York City political campaign since Ed Koch's last race.) But, on the other hand, he's spending election morning shoring up votes in the West Village? Oy. It's not like you saw Bush shaking election-day hands in front of an evangelical church in Texas, did you?

This poor guy doesn't have a chance.

Earlier: Happy Primary Day!