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

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

It's largely because we have had such a lower voter participation rate in the past. This year we have a larger than normal turnout. Even in the primaries had a large turnout/ Usually it's just me and a few retired people at most places I've voted on primary day. On top of that, we have a major machinery change mandated by law. Combine that with the GOP messing with voter lists and ACORN employees botching a lot the registrations they've collected and you've got a real mess.

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

Even in elections that weren't expecting record turnouts, the actual voting procedure in the US is pretty cumbersome and in larger population areas, yeah, lines could go pretty far. This is why I plan to be at the polling place right when they open tomorrow.

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.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

I've never had an issue before -- I always just showed up, got my ballot, filled it out, and dropped it in the box. It never took me more than thirty minutes, and most of that was the fiddly details of actually filling the thing out.

This year, we voted by mail -- making "permanent absentee" status available is one of those things helping to increase voter turnout, I think -- so if there are any issues at the local polling places, I don't know about'em.

bradhicks, of course, has some pretty plausible hypotheses about the traffic jams at the polling places this year (http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/416179.html).

2 cents American

[catarzyna.livejournal.com]

I've never had to wait more than 20 minutes to vote but I've never done early voting either. It isn't an option here in PA. One thing I do know is that in FL they legislated to reduce the number of hours the polling places could be open. They also made it so that it was smack dab in the middle of the work day. I've heard that at least one politician has extended those hours. It could also be because some people don't know until they get there who they are voting for and just stand there holding everyone up for 15+ minutes. I also understand there is some mismanagement by those who are new to running polling locations.

[forthright.livejournal.com]

I would imagine the primary factor is that in Canadian elections, we are only ever voting for one candidate in one race, whereas the American ballot includes not only the presidential race but a large number of downticket races, ballot initiatives, etc.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if the US, although their voter base is an order of magnitude larger than ours, doesn't provide an order of magnitude more voting stations. It also wouldn't surprise me if our low-fi voting procedure produces shorter actual voting times for each individual voter. Finally, how many advance polling events does the US permit? Our latest federal election spread voting at polls over, what, four days? Is that the same in the US?

At this last election, it took me five minutes to vote. That includes travel time, on foot, from my living room. The longest part of the procedure was walking to the polling station. Anecdotally, I think in the last few elections I can remember, the longest I've ever spent voting once arriving at the actual polling station was maybe ten minutes: and that was an aberration (I had to be sworn in and affirmed at a rural riding once, and that took most of the time). Since that time, the longest I've had to wait was three or four minutes in line.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

That's true, but in Canadian elections we also tend to have more candidates to choose from in each particular race, and I wonder how much time that takes amongst unprepared voters. It would be interesting to see how long voting takes amongst unprepared voters in both countries... (i.e. those who have to make up their minds when in the booth, as opposed to coming in, marking their already chosen choice, and leaving.)

[thebitterguy]

Oh, man. I would SO punch someone like that in the back of the head. HARD.

That's worse than going to a movie theatre and not knowing what you want to see when you get to the ticket desk.

[hillarygayle.livejournal.com]

This is a really accurate point: larger population areas see much longer lines. Our voting districts aren't drawn according to population that I can tell. I'm not sure WHAT the rationale is for most of them. Anyway, for me (and I'm sure velvetpage has told you how ridiculously unpopulated my voting district is) the lines are always non-existent. We go to some really tiny church on the outskirts of Harrisburg, walk right in and vote, and then pop back out. Nary a problem. But in a place like Jonesboro and voter turnout like this year? Lines. I can't even imagine what it must be like in a Real City.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

we also tend to have more candidates to choose from

This statement should not be so strong. I assume this to be the case, but I don't know it to be true. I think you're probably completely correct that simply by virtue of deciding more categories of things on each ballot, you make the voting choice take longer (i.e. one race with fifteen candidates probably produces shorter voting time than five races with three candidates in each): the simple act of multiplying the number of marks the voter needs to make makes the time longer, let alone adding to the complexity of the choice involved.

[hillarygayle.livejournal.com]

I agree. There is NO sense in that. With the amount of TIME the American elections take, and as long as the campaign season is, there is simply no excuse for not having made up your mind by the time you get to the polling place. Hell, do a freaking INTERNET SEARCH the day before, if nothing else. GRRR.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I can see that, but there are almost certainly cases where in-the-booth choice is inevitable, and would fall into two categories: those who really are making up their minds in the booth, and those who have made up their mind before arriving, but need assistance making that choice in the booth.

I have no idea who the latter class of problems is solved: how, for example, do illiterate voters manage in Canada where our ballots have only alphabetical characters on them, and not party icons? Presumably, illiterate voters have to be familiar with the shapes that make up a candidates name? Is there a procedure for "assisting" voters in the booth for those that need assistance (for example voters with physical conditions that preclude them from making the actual mark), oh mister bitter elections volunteer guy?

[hillarygayle.livejournal.com]

This is true, and I'll add my experience to it: in all the elections in which I've voted, you've got the big elections (presidential, senate, representatives, etc), the state elections, maybe some local stuff (which is almost impossible to find information on, and so very difficult to make up one's mind properly), and then ballot initiatives. The ballot initiatives take up the most time, because I read them carefully. Some of them are worded extremely poorly, and you have to re-read them a few times to make sure you want to vote on them (unless you've done your research ahead of time, which I recommend but hardly anyone actually does). I came damn close to voting FOR the Arkansas hetero marriage amendment when I intended to vote AGAINST it. Ever since then I've been adamant about finding the wordings ahead of time.

[zorinlynx.livejournal.com]

It has a lot to do with early voting. Lots of people are voting early this year, so the lines are very long.

Actual election day has about 20 times as many polling places as early voting, so the wait should be significantly less despite the higher turnout.

I'm voting tomorrow morning myself; driving straight to the polling place and from there to work.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

This is what I've heard as well--that high turnout is/is likely to be an issue.

[forthright.livejournal.com]

Most of the elections I've voted in have had between five and eight candidates, and I find it hard to believe that anyone who goes in undecided/unprepared realistically is choosing between more than two of them (given that when you have eight, at least three or four are fringe parties).

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I wonder if a big factor is not necessarily the density that the polling station must serve (i.e. the population of the people within the station's service radius), but rather the size of the staff (the effective bandwidth) of the polling station: it wouldn't surprise me at all if the rural stations had not only a smaller population to serve, but also roughly equivalent actual bandwidth to urban stations.

I suspect that the drawing of polling boundaries isn't just based on population, but also geography: there are probably rules or guidelines about the maximum travel burden to be placed on voters as well as population density to consider, which would naturally make urban polling stations have to serve a much higher density, and almost certainly not have the proportional increase in bandwidth that would let them match the throughput of rural stations.

[slwatson.livejournal.com]

When I voted in the last election, the line was about an hour long.

[vandringar.livejournal.com]

I've never had to wait more than a few minutes to vote, before.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

My wife was working at a polling station this year, and when I came in to bring her dinner the lineup for her station was taking around 20-30 minutes.

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

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.

I waited at least 20-30 minutes in line this fall, not including walking time and actually voting. The wait time given after I voted was for about 40 minutes. Not six hours, but I was caught offguard

[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.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

I think it varies enormously depending on where you are. My polling place is around the block (the firehouse) and I'm usually in and out of there in five minutes. I also tend to go first thing in the morning, so there's usually very few people there when I show up.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

They might recognize the number and length of the words in the party affiliation. I don't know how they'd fare in municipal elections, though : P.

Although, frankly, an illiterate person's political disenfranchisement is probably pretty low on their list of problems in a North American nation...

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

I've had to wait up to ten minutes, in the past. But once I was in the booth, I already had my pre-marked sample ballot marked, and just boom-boom-boom, I was out of there within 5 minutes (I double-checked my ballot after marking each page's worth of votables, to make certain I had indicated the correct-for-me choices). I'm still not certain how we're going to deal with it tomorrow, if I'm going to head to my polling place with or without chronovius, since he hasn't yet received his sample ballot (but I did), and as of last Thursday, wasn't showing up online.

Although, he did register himself as Democrat, this year... I wonder if that is a factor in the delay...

[thebitterguy]

Man, you know I was too sick to go to the election. I don't believe the concerns of illiterate votes were discussed in training. They were MUCH more concerned about what to do about women in veils.

[rikoshi.livejournal.com]

Same here. And my polling place (for all previous elections in which I voted) was in someone's garage.

[archai.livejournal.com]

In our elections, in my experience, if you haven't made up your mind by the time you get to the polls you aren't going to, and moreover, you're probably not actually going to the polls anyway. You just got lost on the way to the grocery store, and will merely turn around in the parking lot.

If you don't know who you're voting for by the time you vote, there's nothing in the booth to save you. Just names on a ballot. If you're actually deciding who's going to lead the country by the curvature of the fonts each name is printed in, please, don't vote.

[relee.livejournal.com]

It's a bold conspiracy to make them think regular voting is innefficient so that they'll support easily tampered-with digital voting!

It's a joint effort by the Mole People and the Crab People!

Or something. ^.^

Seriously though it does seem weird. Even their early voters had to wait in line.

[kianir.livejournal.com]

Long voting lines happen in places that are heavily populated and poorly served by government. And often, just .. poor. Poor people vote against the establishment. Those typically in charge of handling elections are pro-establishment. Poor people can't bleed wages for a whole day to stand in line and vote.

Paraphrasing my favorite terrorists' words, it doesn't take a weatherman to tell which way that wind's blowing.

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

Where I live, we've had early voting for the past 3 weeks or so. They had a special early voting station here on campus for three days, and the Obama-zoids were campaigning heavily to get people in to vote... and people did, lining up in very long queues which were taking quite a while to get through.

As for election day, since we moved to the electronic balloting, they have fewer polling places, however we now can go to any polling place in the county, instead of the one specifically designated for our precinct. We just give them our name and address, which they verify in their list, then set up the smartcard to have the elections I'm supposed to vote for, and I go to the next open station.

Last year in the General election I went to a library on the way home from work, and got through in about 15 minutes.

Last spring in the Primary, I went over to the university polling place over lunch, and was through in about ten minutes. It will probably take longer this year, as more people are expected to turn out, but early voting has significantly lessened the congestion on election day.

It wouldn't surprise me, though, that the media is hyping the worst occurrences of lines at polling places.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

This is a not in-considerate concern, I suppose. Are women wearing veils not allowed to remove their veils in front of other women? I don't know much about the finer points of that bit of religious costuming.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

there's nothing in the booth to save you

In Canada a candidate's party affiliation is printed on the ballot along with his name, I believe, or on a notice paper affixed to the inside of the voting station. I would have thought that for many voters this was the principle detail that they required, and in fact, knowing the candidate's name ahead of time was not as relevant for them.

So, rather than knowing who the Grit (or Tory, or whoever) was, they at least had to search down the list for "the one who belongs to that party".

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

along with his name

Or in the case of ridings not mine, her name.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Wow; that's impressive. I guess part of my situation also is that, because of the distance I work away from my home, and the age of my kids, I have tended for the last decade not to vote during peak hours. This would likely also explain the lack of line-ups I've experienced...

[zenten.livejournal.com]

During the day there were weird spikes, so that one station would have a wackload of people, while another would be empty. I think by 6pm though everyone was getting the lineups I described.

We always vote early anyway though.

[saomigray.livejournal.com]

I haven't had much of a wait before, but I think some of the issue is people voting at peak times when everyone else wants to be there too.

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

This 'wayte tew yode' thing you speak of. I.. don't think I understand.

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

I just saw the numbers for my county.

36000 have voted early. Another 35000-40000 are expected on Election Day itself. So nearly half of the expected voters have already cast their votes.

What's more, there are just over 104000 registered voters for the county. That means we're getting something in the neighborhood of 70-75% turnout. Unprecedented.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

That's excellent!

[lee-in-limbo.livejournal.com]

I can remember in previous elections where the party name was not attached to the candidate name. I can't remember if that was federal, provincial or municipal though.

Lee.

[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.

[archai.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Well, when your political landscape consists for all intents and purposes of two and only two parties, within which there is a veritable smorgasbord of political ideologies, it becomes much trickier. Certainly US voters still go by party (some of them), which is denoted on the ballot, but toeing the party line across the board is increasingly dangerous if you don't know where it's running this year. The chameleonic nature of the Republican party lately, especially, is problematic; the GOP/DNC separation is only good enough to give you a "vaguely left" versus "vaguely right" indication. Here, generally, voting blindly by party alone is what we call "stupid," and for moderates, is impossible.

Perhaps it's not so bad up there where you have things separated out between party lines more closely approximating sanity.