Bear in mind that in many states, including heavily-contested jurisdictions such as Ohio and Florida, anyone can vote absentee and skip standing in line.
California’s official voter guide for its 11 state propositions is 140 pages long, before one even gets to local issues.
In Ohio, people must vote on State Issue 2. Quickly now: Yes or No?
Presumably a place to vote early or get an absentee ballot might be called an election office. I’ve never heard that term, but in my small town, the town clerk handles most details about town business before the voting day in the town office. But the place where votes are cast on election day is a polling place.
Currently standing in line at the polling place in my small suburb of Chicago. There are maybe a dozen people ahead of me, and I think it’s mostly people voting before work. It’s moving smoothly. Part of the delay is having just 2-3 volunteers to flip through the books that have all of the pages showing who is registered to vote in the district, so that makes a bottleneck before you even get to wait for a ballot and then wait for an open booth.
Voting day in the US is always a Tuesday, which is a workday. For those who must work on Tuesday, particularly those with a long work shift, it may be nearly impossible to vote on the actual vote day so for those people waiting in line for early voting may be less inconvenient than trying to schedule a day off in order to vote on election day.
Actually, in Florida, the places where early in-person voting take place are election offices. The “polling place” is a location in which to cast your vote, which may or may not be located in an election office, as opposed to a local school, church basement, or, in my case, the garage where the local township parks its emergency and maintenance vehicles.
Definitely overblown for tv - I’ve voted in 5 different districts in 3 different states, and never had to wait more than 5 minutes, and that was a Presidential election year in New Jersey - which is our most densely populated state. Most of the time, there is no wait at all - you walk in, say your name, and you get a ballot or get sent to the right machine immediately, and there is no more than 1 or 2 other people even voting at the same time as you.
How long are the polling stations open on election day? We vote on a work day in the UK too (Thursdays), but polling stations are open 7am-10pm so it would have to be a pretty horrendous, employment law-defying workshift to not be able to make it.
There’s an element of political theater to it. Activist voters want to be seen packing the polls, eager to vote, and they want to be exit polled so as to show momentum for their candidate.
Ohio, like Florida and many other states, allows anyone to vote absentee (i.e., you don’t actually have to be absent), so a physical trip tot he polling place is not necessary.
The one time I voted in NYC, it was a zoo. We were voting in a nearby school, and there were seemingly thousands of people all trying to vote at the same time. It was like a gymnasium crossed with a college bar.
During the last presidential election, folks were lined up before the polls opened here in NJ. Off cycle elections are pretty sleepy, you go in, walk right up to the table and get your turn, no muss no fuss.
The last two elections I waited an hour and a half to vote in my district. This morning I went to the polls and the people coming out were reporting an hour wait but the line were out the door and down the block by then, far longer than in the past when voting took so long. I will be trying again when I get off work but I expect the process to take two hours.
Voting opens at 7:00 here in MA. I arrived at the polling place at 6:55 and there were maybe 50 people in line. By the time I left at 7:20 there were perhaps triple that number. Today was the longest lines I’ve seen here, but we have a very close Senate race that is driving record numbers of folks to the polls.
There were long lines at several polling stations I passed on the drive to work, but by 8:30 they were noticeably shorter.
In many places, poll workers are volunteers. Even where they re paid, the pay is very nominal. It’s not a job. That’s why 90 percent of poll workers that I’ve seen are retirees.
Yes. I just voted and the line was not what would considered long and the ballot was relatively simple (3 offices, 2 constitutional amendments, and 4 bond issues) but I still waited nearly an hour. Not only was the process slow, but there were only two machines (for those choosing electronic) and three privacy screen (for those choosing paper) and the community center is huge. They finally let people use the other side of the desk if you didn’t care about using a privacy screen, but that’s only three more spots.
Yeah good luck with Republicans in charge of state government. My mom was notified yesterday that Jon Husted’s goons had rejected her absentee ballot. She’s recovering from back surgery and now has to run around the county to figure out what to do.
This varies according to state law. Here they are open from 6 am to 7 pm. If we tried to go after finishing work we’d never make it.
Some people have long shifts - for example, my typical workday is 10 hours (I work 4 days a week, three off, so that’s how I get my 40 hours). Nurses often have 12 hours shifts. Some people have a risk of being held over if the person on the next shift doesn’t show up, so their 8 hour day may be unexpectedly extended.
Most places in the US I have lived the polls were open at least 12 hours on election day - but if you have a 10 hour shift with an hour commute on each end getting to the polls on time might be a challenge.* A traffic jam might mean you get to the polls too late to vote.
Of course, these sorts of situations is why we’ve long had absentee voting. People in that situation could submit their ballot early
Despite my 10 hour shift it’s not a problem for me because 1) the polls here open 3 hours before I have to start work, 2) my commute is 10 minutes, not an hour, and 3) I happen to be off today, so no problem.
Went to vote at 9am today. Had to wait behind 3 people because they were all A-M and from my section. The other 3 poll workers couldn’t help since my name wasn’t in their books.
I will give a thumbs up to Christie, while I didn’t need any special help to vote, he seems to have opened up a lot of options for folks who were impacted by Sandy. He promised voting trucks (of some sort) for locations without power, and made electronic voting available. Rather a contrast from other administrations who seem to think that actively preventing votes is an acceptable choice.
The registration books are alphabetical, and at least at my polling place, the workers seem to have great difficulty with the alphabet. They’ll turn page after page looking for my surname, instead of figuring out that L always comes between K and M. Then there’s the time spent explaining to me how the black pen works. And then there’s the time spent in the booth, coloring in arrows for 120 different judges.
Most of the early voting places in my part of Florida are public libraries, which are also polling places on election day, just not for my precinct. Your Florida election mileage may differ, but AFAIK none of our early voting places are election offices nor do I even know where that might be.
Also, fwiw, we don’t have church basements in Florida.
