Philadelphians voted in the 2025 Municipal Primary and Special Election for who they want to see on the ballot representing their party in November.
On Tuesday, May 20, nearby residents traveled to the Presbytery of Philadelphia in Germantown to cast their vote for district attorney, city controller, and local and state judge nominees.
Decades of democracy
Tori Reese has lived in the area since she was born and began going to the polls with her parents as a child. Her entire life, she has supported candidates, been a poll watcher, gone to town watches and exercised her right to vote.
“I’m making sure that my party is supported and that I’m electing officials that are willing to support and advocate and move forth with what they have as their agenda to make sure it is representing the people that they serve,” Reese said.
Reese and her mother walked jointly into the Presbytery to continue to exercise their right as they have for years.
Voting through generations
Philadelphia resident Carmen Lassus said she has voted every year and has always carried a certain passion when casting her vote.
“It (voting) means everything,” she said.
Lassus recalled her history of voting over the years thinking back to the first time her son was able to vote in 2008. Lassus and her son walked into the polls hand in hand to cast their votes similar, she said, to how she stood hand in hand with her classmates in 1968.
“When I was 10 years old, Martin Luther King [Jr.] was murdered, and I remember I was in the sixth grade,” Lassus said. “We held hand in hand.”
Lassus recalled how she and her sixth grade classmates stood in the auditorium with one arm over the other, holding hands, singing the song, ‘We Shall Overcome’.
“Now, it’s a different world, so I guess I’m holding up the bloodstained banner,” she said.
Lassus emphasized that she understands the power of casting a ballot—and that’s why she makes sure to cast her own. For her, the most important thing is having a voice, and voting in this primary election is how she ensures that voice is heard.
A voice for change
Selena F. Gillespie and her husband Robert Gillespie also traveled to the polls to make her voices heard and own their constitutional right.
Selena said primary elections are important, because they give citizens a voice in what is happening in the country.
“Democracy seems to not be happening,” she said. “People in positions are not following the constitution. So we have to fight.”
