When I watch coverage of the US elections, I am stunned that there are long lines at election offices. Sometimes, people who want to vote have to wait for hours.
Why is that? Aren’t there enough election offices? Are election offices understaffed?
This is something you would expect in a country which is holding it’s first elections after having thrown their dictator into exile and with no experience in organizing elections. But the United States?
In my neck of the woods (Germany), I have never seen anything like this, even in larger cities. Usually, election workers are bored stiff on election day. On occasions, there is a rush shortly before a polling station closes. But that is about it.
All you need to do to figure it out is to look at which types of districts–rich or poor, Democratic or Republican–have the worst problems, and which politicians–Democratic or Republican–created the obstacles to voting. It’s fairly simple, really, in terms of “Why?” and “Who’s responsible?”, all under the guise of preventing voter fraud, which is close to non-existent in the US.
One thing about the US is that they vote on a lot of things: President, Representative, Senator, then possibly Governor, State Rep, State Senator, possibly the local county, police chief, judge, and then a few referendums thrown in, too.
Takes a lot of time to go through all those. As a Brit, the most I’ve had to vote on in one day is the House of Commons, European Parliament and maybe the local council. Takes about 5 minutes.
A less cynical, but related answer to pseudotriton ruber ruber’s answer is that a lot of the precincts with lines are ones that have traditionally low turnout and get swamped during high-interest races. There are certainly some where it is a chronic problem (i.e. turnout has been high for the last few presidential elections) and where the local authorities aren’t doing enough to address it, but that’s the root of the problem.
I’m guessing most European elections don’t get the wild turnout swings ours do, and so you don’t get big mismatches in polling resources and turnout.
Another thing that is relevant is that polling places are temporary, and are set up and staffed largely by volunteers in schools, churches, community centers, and other locations.
Remember that this year’s presidential election doesn’t start for a couple of hours yet (except for a few small villages in the northeast). What you’ve been seeing so far are the lines for “early voting.” Early voting is a relatively recent phenomenon. There has always been some sort of procedure for people who are going to be unable to vote on election day, but the requirements for early voting have been liberalized during the last few years so that most jurisdictions allow voters to vote early without having to give any reason.
During the early voting period, typically only a few central voting locations are open in each jurisdiction. The local voting stations are only open on the actual voting day. Back when hardly anyone voted early, that was not a problem. But now that early voting has become more popular and the candidates have been encouraging early voting, the local election authorities have not adjusted to the additional demand for early voting.
That makes me wonder why people choose to vote early. Having to go to an election office which isn’t even near where I live and then having to wait for a considerable amount of time takes away all the convenience of early voting, doesn’t it?
This is absurd. They have four years to work on possible staffing issues, and they claim that voting is important to them. If it were, it would be the simplest thing in the world to staff the polling places properly–as our friend in Europe is plainly confirming wiht his question.
The City of Chicago has 51 early voting offices open for about a month.
On election day, they have 2034 voting precincts open.
Are you proposing that they should pay to keep all 2034 precincts open for a whole month?
In Australia elections are held on weekends, public places such as schools are used as polling places, public servants (mostly as overtime) man the polling booths and there are enough of them in each electorate to cover the total population. We all have to vote, all votes are cast by hand yet we get through it all in the day and usually know the result of the election well before midnight.
So with some changes it is possible. Mind you sometimes I have queued for up to 2 or 3 minutes to vote.
Note, too, that the ones with long lines are the ones that get on the news. Showing the outside of an elementary school with one or two people walking in every few minutes isn’t great TV.
The cost of running an election is covered by local governments, at least in my state. Poll workers are paid, so the more you need, the more cost to taxpayers. Most poll places are set up only for one day and the administration has to anticipate the turnout; not always easy to do. If the election proves to be more popular than thought, you have a supply/demand imbalance.
And in the US, they are called “polling places,” not “election offices.”
One answer is that it’s politically expedient for the party in control. The elections are controlled by elected, partisan officials. In Florida, where I live, this means that they’ve reduced the time for early voting, and the Republicans have added several pages of Constitutional Amendments to the ballot. Many (most?) people don’t bother to review and understand these before they arrive at the polling place. Early voting is done at a much smaller selection of polling places. They’ve added a voter ID requirement, so it takes longer to get each voter started.
This all works to the advantage of the party in power, since early voting and high turnout have traditionally favored the Republicans.
Now, take all of that, and mix in elderly poll volunteers and a decent number of senior citizen voters who don’t move at a fast clip at the best of times, and it will take some time to vote.
I’m sure they don’t have that many voting booths inside compared to the number of voters outside. Right now it’s 7:20-ish am in that area, so a lot of people are voting before work. I’m sure at the majority of voting places, before and after a 9-to-5 job are extremely crowded, and less so during the day. In highly-populated/highly-contested districts, you may see the lines last for much longer.
I just saw a shot from Florida where maybe 4 people were standing (rather aimlessly, not apparently in line) outside a polling place, so they’re not all lines-out-the-door.