I got to my polling spot around 7:45 this morning – this is in Florida. There was a line of about 6-8 people. I barely had time to get in a couple sips of coffee. Five minutes later, I was filling in my bubbles – we use paper ballots with markers in this county. I was out the door at 7:55 and wasn’t even late to work. Everyone was pleasant, the precinct was well organized, and now it’s just another Tuesday.
Here in California, I filled out my (permanent-) absentee ballot last night. I’ll drop it off on my way to work. I’ll be out of there in 5 minutes.
Something like #133 at 7:15am (polls open at 6). I believe in 2008 I was 150ish at about the same time. The line was longer but there was one fewer machine and a lot fewer spots for paper ballots in 2008. Democratic (but not overwhelmingly so) district in MO.
I voted about 6:30am since the polls opened at 6:00am. There was no line for waiting, so I was in a voting booth within a minute.
I Voted early (Thursday ~100pm) for the first time in 10 presidential election cycles.
The city where I live (Greensboro NC, pop. ~250,000) only had about five early voting facilities, but the closest to me was within five miles through light traffic, so getting there was easy.
Stept 1 inside was to give name and address (no ID required) to one of 3-4 receptionist poll workers at PCs; they would generate an 8x11 printout containing the voter’s information. Step 2 was to give the printout to a poll worker monitoring the polling booth area, who then let you go on to vote at a booth.
Voting was performed electronically. There was no paper trail in sight, but according to news sources NC electronic voting does generate a paper trail.
There was no line either at the reception station or at the polling booth. The early voting process was much easier than voting on election day-- I was in and out in less than 10 minutes.
Washington State is all vote-by-mail. It’s much nicer than standing in line at a polling place, as I did in California.
Had to wait an hour and forty-five minutes to vote early on Saturday. Our town only had one location open for early voting, and that plus it being the last day to vote early made for a busy day. It was well run though.
Maybe 15 minutes. The folks who do it have a bake sale at the same time (it’s in a church). I did give them my DL just because I have an odd name, but it was all pretty quick. The much more important choice was afterward: poppy-seed or pumpkin muffin with my free coffee? 
We have early voting in North Carolina. I voted about a week and a half ago. It took 5 minutes, no line, I walked in, told them my name and address, voted.
Went to the polls here at about 7:30 a.m. They open at 6, and I usually try to get there just as they open, but I decided to sleep in a bit today.
It was busy, but not enough to cause lines of any real length to form. The biggest issue was watching people trying to park their SUVs in the school parking lot (I didn’t want to deal with them, and so, I parked on the street).
There’s two different precincts which vote at this place (a Catholic grade school), and my precinct always seems to be the less-busy of the two. I had to wait about 2 minutes for my turn at the check-in table, but it only took about 30 seconds for them to locate my registration in the book.
Cook County offers both electronic (touch screen) voting and paper punch-card ballots. When the election judge asked which I’d prefer, I said, “whatever’s available”…as it turned out, there was no line for the electronic booths, so that’s where I went.
Because I’m in a pretty solidly Democratic district, a fair number of the races had a Democrat running unopposed. The biggest part of the ballot in Cook County is for judges – every judge has to run for re-appointment, but, for a sitting judge, it’s a “yes / no” vote for retention (for something on the order of 100 judges). I had a brief list of judges who have been deemed “unacceptable” by the Bar and by the newspapers, so I voted “no” for them, and finished up my ballot.
Beginning to end, I don’t think I was in there for 10 minutes.
Got in line at 7:06. Cast my ballot at 9:06. Ugh.
Busy in my Minneapolis suburb - the election judge told me that it was the busiest she’d ever seen in some 30 years of working as an election judge. Still went really fast, though. I had to stand in line for 5-10 minutes to get my ballot, and then could choose to wait for a booth (no) or use on of the 5 or so long tables they had. I’m not really worried about anyone cribbing from me :D, so I chose the table. Way faster. Done in maybe 20 minutes.
There was a couple of issues - MN generally uses those “scantron” sheets where you fill in the bubble, then it’s read by an automatic machine. But our automatic machine wasn’t tabulating correctly, mostly, so they were just having voters insert the completed ballot below with a “It will be counted!” to every voter. I’m not worried about it - I’m pretty sure they’ll have down times between 9-11 and again in the afternoon where they can get it worked out. My neighbor had a “faulty ballot” for whatever reason - the machine told her that - so there were jokes at her expense from the peanut gallery in the line while she got another ballot. “You’re not supposed to sign it!” “But I added circles and hearts and made it all pretty!” Was pretty funny.
I’m in MN. Redistricting meant that we now vote at a new polling place, a church within a mile of my home. I took a shortcut through a neighborhood, parked, walked in to see a line of about 20 people. But there were signs dividing us up into A-L, and M-Z. The twenty people were all in the M-Z line. I strolled up to my A-L line, gave them my last name, signed in, went to the table for my ballot, voted. I was home within 15 minutes.
Walked about 20 minutes to voting location. Arrived about 9:00am. The only guy I had to wait in line behind was my husband.
I live in the country directly to the west of West Philly.
The wife got up at 6:00 AM and I joined her to walk around the corner to the elementary school where our child attends 5th grade, our polling place. There was a line before the polls opened up at 7 but it started moving when the clock struck 7. One fellow in back of us yelled out “You don’t have to show ID,” which made us smile.
(We have dealt with a Voter ID law here that was delayed until after the election but the education campaign and advertising came under fire for being somewhat ambiguous about the change.)
There was some confusion and the lines didn’t go as smoothly as they could because we had two precincts voting and that meant two separate tables and many didn’t know their precinct so they had to check at one table and, if not in the book, move to the other.
There was an older guy who was making calls reporting things at the station and taking notes. I overheard him talking about the issue of two tables and how it was causing a delay. Then I noticed the cover of his paperwork was a big Obama logo.
I asked him if he was a Democratic poll watcher. He admitted he was (he said he tried to be incognito). First time I ever saw a poll watcher before. He proceeded to try and ask people in line if they knew their precinct in an attempt to hurry the line up.
There were many signs up on the grass touting the Republican challenger to our local Democratic State House Rep incumbent. There was also volunteers from each candidate giving out pamphlets. I thought it was amusing that the one for the Republican challenger was saying “You can vote for us and Obama.”
(In 2008 Obama won my district 58-41 and my county by 21 points.)
We got into the correct line (I had my Voter Registration card with this information) and they didn’t even ask for our IDs. Which was fine with me - I had planned on saying “I have ID but I will not show it to you” in my little impotent fists of rage protest against the whole chicanery. Interestingly, it was my wife’s first election here (she forgot to change her address before the 2010 elections) so the line by her name did say to ask for ID (presumably they do that for first-time voters) but they didn’t ask her.
My wife first and then I went into the booth. The electronic machine was easy to use, our ballot was very simple:
[ul]
[li]President/Vice President of the United States (D/R/L/G choices)[/li][li]Attorney General (D/R/L)[/li][li]Auditor General (D/R/L)[/li][li]State Treasurer (D/R/L)[/li][li]United States Senator (D/R/L)[/li][li]US Rep (D/R)[/li][li]State Rep (D/R)[/li][/ul]
No ballot initiatives or anything else like that. Just seven offices.
I voted Democratic straight ticket (as did the wife) and left. All told, it took about 25 minutes.
The line was bigger when we left than when we started. That made me happy since good turnout in spite of the voter suppression efforts in my state was nice to see.
After I punched in the straight Democratic ticket, a slot opened under the machine and a brand new ObamaPhone popped out, complete with the Internationale and all the songs from the IWW Little Red Songbook as preprogrammed ringtones. (Joke stolen/adapted from the Daily Kos “I Voted” thread.)
Actual event: It was about a 20-minute wait, reportedly longer earlier in the morning, with everything moving along smoothly.
I have been in line at my polling place since 7:45am. I’m being told I will wait at least another hour. This is unprecedented for me. I’m torn between being proud and patriotic, and being hella grumpy. Everyone is in good spirits even the small kids.
I voted early in Ohio, a little after lunchtime on a weekday over a week ago. I went with a friend from work–we got in and out in ten minutes. Those who procrastinated got much longer lines.
My husband took our nearly four-year-old with him to vote at our polling place this morning. He waited in a line that was about 10-15 minutes long. This is the longest line either of us has seen there–we moved to this neighborhood (a relatively affluent suburb of Columbus) in 2009 and have voted in every election since we moved. Yard signs in my neighborhood break somewhere between 50-50 and 60-40 Romney, but it seems like both sides of the aisle are motivated to vote in this election.
I hate this part. Is it too early to drink?
I voted a little while ago in Chillicothe, Ohio, about 40 miles south of Columbus. The only people ahead of me were my mother-in-law and wife. I was the 54th voter today at that precinct. It was a pleasant experience. The poll worker did ask for my ID
Sat down at my desk last night, read through my voter information guide, checked the boxes, sealed the envelope, and today I’ll swing by the library and drop it off. Even if you procrastinate to the last minute, you just can’t find a line to get stuck in if the whole damn state is Vote By Mail.