# Tales of the polls **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 6, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080 "2012-11-06T14:38:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/1 "2012-11-06T14:38:47Z")
Wow, what a line! Just went and had a gander at my polling place, and it looked like an hour’s wait at the least. I can’t ever recall seeing turnout like this. So that’s how things are in my little Democratic corner of Massachusetts. How’s it look elsewhere? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/2 "2012-11-06T14:44:18Z")
Just drove through Arlington, Virginia, and saw a couple of polling places with lines around the block. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/3 "2012-11-06T17:30:50Z")
I don’t think I’ve ever had to wait more than about 5 minutes in any of our elections. (We don’t vote on more than 1 thing at a time except for municipal elections, though - probably makes a significant difference.) ---
**Author:** ![inedible\_knapsack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/49beb7/32.png) [@inedible\_knapsack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inedible_knapsack)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/4 "2012-11-06T17:47:55Z")
I voted at 10:00 EST expecting the line to be relatively short. The line wasn’t short, it was _nonexistent_. I was seriously the only person voting. One other guy was there, but he was apparently in the wrong precinct. I’ve heard that something like 46% of the likely voters in my county have already voted, as I intended to all along :rolleyes:. Makes sense, really; there are a few highly contested local offices in play along with the presidential race, so voter engagement is unusually high. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/5 "2012-11-06T18:56:07Z")
Timing is everything. I went just now to vote and was in and out in five minutes. A large percentage of the names was already checked off, which is amazing, given that the voting day is only half over. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/6 "2012-11-06T19:02:34Z")
I was in line 10 minutes before the polls opened at the town hall in the middle of nowhere. Parking was so haphazard that at one point there were areas with cars in rows 3 deep, which made it impossible for the cars in the middle to get out. There was one guy with a giant jacked-up pickup truck covered in anti-Obama and anti-gov’t stickers that decided he didn’t need to abide by “big government” rules and drove out of the parking lot the long way - over the lawn of the town hall! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/7 "2012-11-06T19:06:18Z")
We went to vote about 7:45am and waited for about 10 minutes in line. The Poll-workers were really being helpful about getting to people quickly, so no complaints there. Maybe I normally vote later; but there was more people, and more people who’d brought their underage children than I remember ever seeing before. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/8 "2012-11-06T19:28:04Z")
Oh, and a big shout-out to America’s senior citizens. Without their tireless work at the polls, we’d have long ago given up on democracy altogether. ---
**Author:** ![Tracyfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f14d63/32.png) [@Tracyfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracyfish)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/9 "2012-11-06T19:54:20Z")
I got to my polling place at 10 am this morning. A few people walked in the same time that I did, but I only had one person in front of me, and that was just for the part where they scanned our ID and gave us a ballot. Even that part was fast. My precinct had no wait, including the part where we had to feed our ballot into the machine, but the precinct on the other side of the room had a line. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/10 "2012-11-06T20:16:23Z")
Took an early lunch to vote and ended up waiting an hour and a half. But only the last 20 minutes were actually spent standing in the rain. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/11 "2012-11-06T22:40:11Z")
Anybody out there voting by machine? Here in Massachusetts, we’re old school: no voter ID, paper ballots and black markers. No hanging chads for us. ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-the-polls/640080/12 "2012-11-06T23:50:32Z")
Here in my county, you can vote at any of the 69 available polling places, regardless of precinct. There were also 16 places where you could cast your vote between October 9 and November 3, and everyone in our family had voted by the end of last week. Apparently, 462,000 people voted early or absentee in New Mexico, and it looks like polls are pretty busy today. Our county clerk is predicting 72% turnout, which is pretty good for us. Aside from the presidential race, we have some really hotly contested Senate and House races, and there are some bond issues that are dear to many hearts (I’m hoping with all my being that the one to fund the rebuilding of a particularly nasty interchange passes). Albuquerque voters are also deciding whether to pass a higher minimum wage, so this election hits us all where we live, even if we don’t think our votes for President will really make a difference one way or another. There’s no voter ID law here (yet - it keeps coming up over and over), and all you have to do in New Mexico is give your name and birthdate, verify your address, and sign your name. We used to vote electronically, on machines that had a paper backup, but we went back to paper ballots some years back. I’m not a fan of filling in the little ovals while standing at a shaky little plastic table, but if schoolchildren can do it four times a year, I can do it for every election.