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

[rowyn]

Given the time spent on the presidential election, yes. Given the time spent on local ballot initiatives, which receive next to no attention in the media? (Unless they're blocking gay marriage or something). I'm not going to fault someone for showing up knowing who they want to vote for in some of the elections, but not familiar with all the candidates for 15 races and 5 ballot iniatives that are on the ballot.

And yeah, turnout's the biggest factor in lines for presidential elections. I took about 30 minutes getting through the line at my polling place. Which did "wrap around the block", but it was moving very quickly. Sometimes the line length is misleading. It was also much shorter when I left, suggesting a lot of people were there near the opening out of fear of a crowd.