[carp]

I went in at around 7 AM. I was able to walk right in and walk right out. I was surprised. The people who need to get to work on time had already voted, and the non working folks were getting caffeinated I suppose. It also helps to live in a small town. We are large enough to control the polling place but small enough to staff many of the important town functions with volunteers. The thought of having to interact with 40 PO'ed neighbors the next time you go grocery shopping helps keep town officials motivated.

[dani0303]

Voted at my county election office yesterday. I live in a pretty crucial swing state but my work schedule is such that I can't afford to miss several hours to stand in line.

Good on you Frizzle!!

[Frizzle]

Aw, thanks for the kudos, guys! Just doing my civic duty.

I just passed by my polling place on the way home about 15 minutes ago and there were still a TON of people there! Our polls close @ 7, but if you're in line @ the time you get to vote no matter how long that takes. Our ballot was LONG (5 pages, both sides), which I think has *something* to do with how long it was taking people to vote (because they don't read the written-in-Greek proposed ammendments beforehand and try to figure them out @ the voting booth). I don't think my district will have all the votes counted for quite some time.

For those interested, I am in Miami, FL. I guess my district is important because both candidates for HOR were there all day, and IIRC in 2008 there were 3 or 4 candidates there, too. I guess we're large or have a high turn-out percentage or something.

Like I said, thank goodness I was in line with some very friendly people. I was the only one in my little area who had done a lot of research and had a sample ballot, so we stood around and discussed the proposed ammendments, what they said, what voting yes/no meant, what the proponents/opponents said, etc. We didn't always agree, but that was fine and we all had a nice, intelligent conversation.

Thank goodness the campaigners of one of the presidential candidates came around with free pizza and water after we had been there a few hours! I'm sure it didn't win any votes, but it was a nice gesture and we all very much appreciated it.

[BuddyRoo]

I'm not sure I'd be dedicated enough to be in line for hours like that. Kudos to you.

[Wonders12]

Maybe I've been living under a rock... But can someone please explain to me why the lines are so long? I got to walk right in at a quarter to 10 this morning (with two precincts at one location), but even at the peak time there is no way it is EVER more than a half hour wait.

I also live in an LA suburb in California, so definitely not rural.

Are there few locations (in which case can you volunteer to host for a future election), are there a lot of people per square mile so locations are handling a lot of people, or something else? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I just cannot imagine spending (basically) the whole day in line!

[atlatl]

Thanks to every one who voted! Either way.

[Frizzle]

Wonders12, I'm not sure why the lines were so long in my district. There's a polling place about a mile down the road and the lines were not nearly as long.

There's just something about my district--maybe it's large, population-dense, who knows. My parents are in the same district and they went @ 6:45 am and didn't vote until 10:30. And like I mentioned earlier, there were still a ton of people voting at nearly 11:00 at night. So, it was a constant stream of large numbers of people voting all day long.