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

[easyalchemy.livejournal.com]

Indeed - voting took me slightly longer than usual this year because I was so surprised to see a name on the ballot I didn't recognize; who knew we had a person running for the Marxist-Leninist Party? Not me, anyway. I didn't consider voting for them, but it took me aback.