On Tuesday I went to my polling location. I waited in line for over an hour to get to the registration desk. There I had to give my name to 4 different people. The first two checked a book that I was in the correct place (the second had me sign next to my name). The second two wrote down my name and ballot number (just in case you thought it was anonymous voting). Then I got my chance to head to a voting booth.
Now, I had to wait an hour. It must be that there just weren’t enough voting machines to handle the load, right? Was that because there was a problem with the machines? Of course not. When I finally got my ballot, only 2 of the 6 voting machines were in use. The entire delay was the “sign-in” process.
I figured I just hit the polling location at a bad time. As I was leaving, however, the line was twice as long as when I started. My wife voted much later in the day and had to wait over an hour. She asked one of the people working the polls about the wait time and they said it was pretty much the same all day long.
So much for picking bad times to vote. If the center has over an hour wait constantly all day long, don’t you think someone might just realize that there’s a problem? I guess that would imply competence and some level of caring. No wonder people complain about the hassles of voting. I’ve apparently become one of them.
