There are a lot of variables involved, really, as you’ve seen.
Time of day (do you work regular hours and thus have to vote really early/late after work? Expect lots of other people to be in your same situation.)
Level of motivation of people in your voting precinct (Back in college, a friend lived in a densely populated college student district, on a liberal campus, when there was a lot of motivation that year to vote out incumbent national, state, and local conservatives. She ended up waiting in line 3 hours to vote.)
Number of “special needs” voters - if voters need assistance with voting due to eyesight, other impairment, not having English as their native language, that can hold up the line for other people.
Method of verifying registration - how many people can be processed at once? Where I voted, only one voter could be verified at a time. This is because all of the eligible voters for that precinct had their info collected into a single flip-book, and each person had to be looked up in that one book. Since the book was bound by removable rings, I’m hoping that when it got busier, they split the book into sections alphabetically so that more people could be helped at once.
It took me 5 minutes to vote, and my voting place is on the same block as my house, so travel time was negligible.
Twenty-five minutes, with travel time - about half of that was driving and parking. I’d received a sample ballot, so I’d already researched out my choices. When I got there, there was no line for any of the poll workers (there were three of them, split by alphabet) I voted at 11:45 local, and the polling place was the hall of a Prsebyterian church.
There weren’t any observers - just an older man who opened the door for me (which made me feel kind of odd - he was of an age and condition where I should be opening the door for him!). This county is largely Republican - I’m not sure about my particualr district, but given that there were a number of Republicans running unopposed for local office, I’d say that’s a safe bet.
Touch screen, a couple minutes to actually go through the screens. I had to wait behind maybe a dozen people in line for one of 6 machines, IIRC.
Silicon valley - there were 14 screens to go through, with a couple selections on each. Mostly state and local referendums. With all the referendums, you sometimes get slowed up by people who are reading them for the first time in the booth, whatever voting method is used. They send out detailed voter information pamphlets, but human nature being what it is, some people aren’t going to look at them until they are standing in front of them in the polling place.
On off presidential years, or for not-very-contested presidential races, you usually don’t have lines.
Polls opened here about 6 AM. I had a meeting at 8:15 so needed to be done early, so I arrived at 5:45 AM. There were perhaps 20-30 people in front of me in the line for my part of the alphabet. It took something like a half hour (once the polls opened) for me to get to the front of the line, then perhaps 2 minutes to get “signed in”; another 5-10 minute wait for a machine to be free, then another minute or two to get the deed done.
By the time I left at 6:40-ish, however, the place was much more crowded. Papa Zappa went at 10:50 AM, and it took him an hour and a half start to finish :eek:
In response to another thread (ID required): Here in Virginia, I believe newly-registered voters had to show some specific ID proving they’re legal. That could consist of a driver’s license, social security card, or a bunch of other things. Old-timers like me could either show that ID, or sign something saying “I’m legal, really I am!”.
Fortunately they do not require the actual voter registration card, as the only one I could find was out of date.
My polling place in the township hall houses two (of my township’s five) precincts (out in exurbia ). The line for the other precinct had at least 100 people in it when I walked in the door and I feared having to return later. (I was on my way to work.) Then I looked into the meeting room and saw that there were no voters at my precinct’s sign-in desk. It took me about 30 seconds to get recognized and handed a ballot, about another minute to fill in the ballot (doube-checking to be sure I was not reading any issues incorrectly), and then 15 seconds to deposit my ballot and head for the door. I had to wedge my way through the other line line between the same two people I had passed entering. I have no idea how long they were going to have to wait, but at a minute per voter, (during my my minute-and-a-half, a couple of other voters in my precinct got ballots to fill out at the booths) it could have been more than an hour and a half.
I have no idea why my line was so much shorter unless the precints need serious rearrangement since the last couple housing developments were built.
I woke up at 6:30, got dressed, walked to the polling location, voted, walked home, and was eating Rice Krispies by 7:15. (And it would have been less if I hadn’t had to wait outside the school with the dog while my girlfriend voted.)
In 2000, I was in a different district and it took me about twice that. I think it’s down to the district, or possible even the polling station, and how well organized they are (# of booths, # of workers) compared to the number of voters.
Here in Washington State, no, there’s no time limit.
I was in and out in ten minutes. No line; walked right up to the precinct officer, signed in, got my ballot, and went to the booth. This was five minutes; he’s old and slow. Another five minutes to complete the ballot: lots of issues, lots of time to carefully fill in the little bubbles with a crummy ballpoint pen.
8:00 am - 6 “booths”, actually just little stands with cardboard privacy screens so the person next to you can’t watch unless they really want to, about 3 people in line ahead of me. 3 minutes to check in and sign the book, 1 minute to wait for the next booth to be empty, 3-4 minutes to mark the ballot (paper ballots, with a punch-ink voting pen that makes circles on the ballot. At least it’s not a chad-style ballot anymore.)
My actual voting time was short, maybe 3 or 4 minutes. The big races were easy; we didn’t have many local races at all; and most of the locals were judges who were running unopposed, so I didn’t bother to fill in those bubbles. My line wasn’t long, so the entire process took maybe 15 minutes (including the few minutes waiting for the poll to open!).
Around 11 am the lunch crowd made it in, so my wait was about 20 minutes. No big deal – today’s a holiday so we can all go vote the way the union tells us (seriously).
Actual voting was maybe 1 minute. I’d already had a copy of the ballot, done my research, and just copied my answers from my sample to my real ballot.
No, I don’t know everyone’s names for the “small” elections, but I really did research them. People that vote for incumbants or nice-sounding names piss me off (unless that’s who they really want).
I wonder – this brings up another question. We all know that we can leave parts of the ballot blank if we just have no choice, right? Gosh, I hope so!
I had a conference call for work which I did from home this morning, so I voted at 9:45. My polling place is in the school across the street. No line at all, and they put in extra machines, so it took less then 5 minutes for 8 screens. I usually go before work, or after, and there are lots more people. I forgot my cheat sheet (always important for the umpteen propositions in California) but I remembered my decisions anyhow.
It took me about 10 minutes this morning. Most of it involved reading and deciding on State constitution ammendments. This was about 0730 in a county ward and I was number 118 this morning. It was on the way to drop my son off to school, so the commute time was negligible.
Sometimes they can be tricky. A political advocacy group got enough signatures to put a question on the ballot that would “reform” the local county council. The opponents of the measure put an additional set of questions on the ballot that neutralized selected sections of the reform proposal, if and only if it passed. So if you voted yes on everything, you got the reform proposal, minus all the reform bits. The sample ballot doesn’t give you the background and motivations behind what’s on the ballot. I found a League of Women Voters information sheet on the web that helped me decipher what the questions really meant.
I expected a long line (there was one the last time I voted, or maybe it was the time before). I even brought a magazine.
I arrived at the Elementary school, found a parking spot, went in the door where someone said voting in there (pointing to the gym). Found the right table (no line), signed in and got a slip of paper. I then went to another table where I got my ballot (again no line). Fill in the circle system (both sides of the paper).
Total time: about 10 minutes, but only becaise I triple checked my choices.
After depositing my ballot in the box (the counting machine is at the county seat) I asked the lady there and she said there was long line when the place opened but after that it has be steady but not super busy (950 votes out of 1275* registered voters in the precinct as of 4:50)
Brian
*MN has same day registration, 1275 is the # of RV as of 7AM today
From swing state territory (Southwest PA): Didn’t take long at all. Avoiding the pesky party workers handing out their slates was the difficult part (for the record: this wasn’t intimidation; it was just the usual waste of paper ). Two or three minutes to sign in (our octagenarians are pretty quick ) and then into the big ugly lever machine. I had already researched who I wanted to vote for so even with a write in for Ralph, it took under 2 mins. In all, a longer drive to the polls than to do the actual voting (and that didn’t take much time at all).
One hour and 15 minutes for this Columbus, OH crucial voter. I arrived at 6:15. Some confusion as they changed the entry location from the March primary election. I entered the voting booth around 7:30…I got to work on time. I woke up extra early this morning.
Another five minutes to complete the ballot: lots of issues, lots of time to carefully fill in the little bubbles with a crummy ballpoint pen.