I live on the other side of the planet, where right now it is 3:00 in the afternoon–which is 8:00 am on the East Coast, and the polls just opened.
I’m not there to see what’s happening.
So give me your updates, folks!!!
What does the turnout look like in your local area?
Long lines? short lines? no lines?
(Let’s see if we can have some fun with this thread, and keep it going for the day.After all, I’m gonna be in bed sound asleep when the polls close)
New Jersey should be interesting. Every registered voter was sent a ballot and I think I read 3.1 million have been officially received already. In theory polling places should be pretty light almost everywhere in New Jersey.
Our local polling is never more than a 15 minute wait and usually more like 5 so I expect it to be very light.
Longest line I’ve ever seen at 7 am when the doors opened, fifteen people.
No in-person voting in Oregon, so no lines.
Colorado here. What’s a polling place? I know where my ballot drop box is but I’ve never seen a line.
My son is working the election today, and I dropped him off at 6am, an hour before the polls opened. There were already about a half dozen people in line then.
I already voted on Saturday, but out of curiosity I drove by my usual polling place on the way to work this morning.
It was about 7:15. Most years it’s not that busy, with little or no wait to vote. This morning there were at least a dozen people in line outside the building. No idea how many people were already inside. Polls had opened at 6:00 am.
Walked the dog past the local polling place around 7 - no visible line from outside (we voted by mail earlier),
Was happy that the changed the polling place from a church to a middle school right down the block.
Polls opened at 6:00. I was there by 6:30. It took about 50 minutes to vote.
It usually only takes 15 minutes, but increased turnout and slower processes due to COVID slowed things down.
Tennessee. 10:30AM, no line at all.
Central Nebraska - under 10 minutes at 9AM
Chicago here. No lines. 10-15 minutes at 10:30a.
I went to a polling place in the middle of the business district. I walked in, no lines whatsoever. There were maybe (I didn’t count) 10 voting cubicles with the highest tech voting I have seen in all my years voting. Usually it is a color in the circle thing but this time you are given a little plastic card, insert it below a very large looking LCD screen (just like an iPad but I don’t think it was an iPad) and then the whole voting thing was touch screen. Each choice was very big so it was impossible for even the most ham-fisted of use to vote for the wrong thing and you could undo/redo votes as you wanted until you were done. If a vote called for choosing (say) three of eight choices a little warning appeared telling you that you undervoted until you chose three and then the rest would gray out.
After that a printer in the cubicle with you (normal, everyday laser printer) printed out a plain white sheet of paper with all your votes on it and a big QR code on it. You carried that to a scanner where a poll worker signed it, you slip it in the scanner and it tells you it was accepted.
That was it. Took me all of 10-15 minutes (I had a lot of judges to wade through and I try to look them up on voter guides). I never waited for anyone in front of me to clear.
Easy-peasy.
Do you get to keep that sheet of paper or at least some document you get to take home with you?
#688. 5:50.97 from when I left my bicycle to when I returned to it. Quite a few voters, but I didn’t have issues keeping distance.
Brian
I made it back by 2:30 I was walk in voter # 402 in my precinct. steady flow but no back ups, plenty of tables to sit and vote at, it was a two sided ballot. The two people in front of me, had just registered to vote, and they were getting their paperwork sorted. The young woman was wearing a tshirt with a slogan that basically said Im gonna stomp your ass if you stomp my flag. Poll worker asked her to turn it inside out, so she did, came back kept her place in line.
I voted early and haven’t gotten a good look at any polling places, but I’ve heard secondhand reports of 90-minute waits at polling places in the Cleveland suburbs.
No lines in Johnson county Kansas. Heck, we were about the only ones there. Poll workers looked bored.
Where were all the right wing armed militia the MSM was warning people about? Where were all the long lines and closed polling stations the MSM warned us about?
Now a friend went down saturday to Union station in Kansas city Missouri to do early voting there and it took him 45 minutes. But that was an anomaly because its a cool place and many wanted the experience of voting in such a historic place.
My son got a standing ovation being it was his first time voting.
Nope. The whole sheet goes into a scanner sitting on top of a lockbox where the papers are collected.
All you get to leave with is an “I Voted” wristband and “I voted” small card.
I drove by my town hall here in Connecticut this morning about 11:00 a.m. There were a lot of cars in the parking lot, but no visible lines from outside. (I had already voted absentee.)
There were about the same number of political signs posted along the main driveway as usual, along with a huge Trump sign next to a guy in a Trump costume and rubber Trump mask. What a ridiculous caricature! It was all I could do to stop myself from flipping him off.
There was a Biden display facing the Trump display, but nobody was wearing a Biden costume.
I have been voting at our local high school for 41 years now and served there as an election inspector (poll worker) since 2013. After long lines over nine days of early voting I expected an easy time today. Wrong. I did not work as an inspector this year because spending 17 hours in a mask just seemed like too much for me.
Went when the polls opened at six. The line was, by far, much longer than it ever has been before. Instead of waiting I went home, walked my dogs, ate breakfast and did a puzzle. Finally at about 9:20 I went up again. This time the line was barely out the door. Compared to prior years, it was still very busy. Maybe as busy as rush hour.
I was out in about twenty minutes after going through three different queues.
Our site usually gets 60% participation. I would guess it will be over 80% this year.