I’m a chief election worker (“inspector”) in a purple small city in Wisconsin. We were blown away by the number of college-age people registering on election day* today. We figured this might be a sign that Democratic candidates would do better than expected statewide. Indeed, Evers won re-election as governor a bit more easily than the latest polls suggested he would, and the Dem AG Kaul was just declared a winner as well. I don’t think this will translate into a Barnes victory for Senator, but he’ll come closer to beating Johnson than polling trends predicted. (Our congress seat went to the vile Republican Van Orden – sadly, a Rep pick-up, as the Dem Ron Kind is retiring – but, like Barnes/Johnson, it was closer than many thought it would be.)
(*The reported totals for one of my two wards is “votes cast” equals “104% of registered voters”! Obviously this is because “registered” here means “registered before today”…but I’m sure some dimwitted MAGA-types are seeing this as evidence of shenanigans.)
So, lines for VOTING never exceeded ten minutes, but lines for REGISTERING peaked at about 35 minutes, during two or three hours on four or five occasions (corresponding mainly with college class periods!) across the 13-hour voting day.
I arrived right at 7 am, but there was a short line. Very busy for a midterm. Mine was ballot #13.
By the time my gf voted late afternoon they were out of stickers!!
I was at the poll again, as I took a friend to vote. He pointed out all the camouflage wearing voters, not to intimidate anyone, but because that’s how rural folks dress.
West Allis, Wisconsin. Stopped on my way home from work, so about 0715. In and out in about 5 minutes. There was one person ahead of me and only two people behind me.
I moved from NY to Wisconsin last year and decided to vote on election day. Very easy. Waited behind about three people to sign in at about 10:30. No hassles.
2020 on Long Island my wife waited two hours in line to vote early. I went at 6AM to vote on election day and the line was a couple of blocks long. Went again at noon and the line was very short, maybe 15 people. Wait was about ten minutes.
I live in a midsized Georgia city ~200K population that votes about 65/35 blue, and my house is directly across the street from a polling location. Looking out my front window, I can see the parking lot and the lines (if any). Tuesday seemed a little light on traffic compared to other recent elections. Maybe there was a lot more early voting or mail in voting, but in-person same-day voting was down (based only on my observation of the cars in the lot during the day). I voted early in person last week, so I didn’t need to walk over. Hubby walked over and was back in less than 10 minutes during the 5pm hour after he got home from work.
This was my voting location at 630am on Tuesday. I’m happy about the fact that people are voting, as I believe that we need to figure out ways to get people to vote.
But I live in Kentucky. Very red state. And I live in a rural area, about 1/2 hour outside of Louisville. So while I’m happy that people are voting, but most of my crowd were voting red.
Election worker in urban Kansas: we had a line of about 25 people when we opened at 7am, but line never that long again all day, and rarely had people waiting more than a couple of minutes for a ballot. It was a long ballot, though, with a couple of lengthy and confusingly-written constitutional amendments that slowed people down, so not so much in-and-out voting. (We had at least one gentleman who was really upset that the election workers could not explain the amendment to him; we could only read the explanation printed on the ballot.)
Overall in-person turnout was actually slightly lower than in the August primary (where the anti-abortion amendment was on the ballot), but I don’t know what advance and mail turnout looked like.
I always prefer to vote in person. Even if it involves some waiting (which it rarely does), I like the sense of taking part in a shared civic ritual.
My polling site - in an Ohio big city - was about half full when I arrived in the morning. I didn’t have to wait long to get my ballot and vote - two big ballot sheets, both sides of each having candidates and issues to be voted upon. Turnout countywide by the end of the day was about 44%, I believe, which is disappointingly low. Very bad news for Dems statewide, but some very good news locally, and a friend of mine in another county was elected judge, so all in all, I feel ok this morning.
In the brief ten minutes it took to vote from start to finish we met and talked with five of our neighbors from three different families. They knew us from when we walk our dog past their houses (or they walk their dog past our house). Another shared civic ritual.