Question for Americans

[pyat]

Why are voting lines in the U.S. so long? I'm reading about six hour waits in some early voting places, and I seem to recall tales of "lines around the block" in the last election. Are there only a small number of voting stations?

I've never heard anyone up here complain about waiting in line to vote - or, if they did it was a matter of "It took me 15 minutes to get to the polling station! What a mad house!" sort of thing.

Do we do things differently, or is this just a matter of freak incidents getting media attention?

Comments

Good question!

[melstra.livejournal.com]

I've wondered that myself, as I'm amazed people wait hours to vote in many precincts. As a teacher, my schedule is more flexible, so I have never waited more than a few minutes. I'm sure it's a complicated story, and you may have better answers, but here's a pdf I found which does give some excellent insight: http://www.hartintercivic.com/files/LongLinesWhitePaper.pdf

One big problem is that the rules for how many polling stations are needed and further, how many machines/stalls per station are not consistent from state to state, so it's tough to get a good idea of where exactly problems lie. All the polling places in cities I've lived have been the same as the nearest elementary school...but it's not like that everywhere I guess.