Me: Ireland - Approximately 2 minutes until poll in hand is the longest.
I’ve been seeing long lines for the US elections even for early voting. Seems completely unnecessary.
Oh, I’m thinking about 20 minutes in line outside a small community center, back when I lived in North Dakota (pop of whole state about 600,000). As a lifelong nomad, it was the only state I lived where I actually attended a Democratic party caucus. It was an enjoyable excursion into a behind-the-scenes election process that most will never venture into. Best part was, I escaped without being signed up for anything more!
20 seconds, Germany. Waiting while they checked if my name was on the list.
About 15 minutes, this morning in Wilmington, NC. In previous elections here, I’ve walked in and voted immediately, with no line
I’m gonna grasp at that being positive. My favourite band at a ripe old age, Sylvan Esso, are from NC.
7 hours. People were showing up with pizza and sandwiches for everyone in line. It really destroyed my faith in my local government but built my sense of community.
I think you hold the record so far!
Edit: also fair play to you for sticking it out.
Houston, Texas. 4.5 hours
The lines are intentional to discourage you from voting
GOOD GOD!!!
Fwiw it was less than 10 mins in the affluent neighborhoods I lived near San Francisco, California and New York and 1.5 hours in the poor neighborhoods in those same cities
That’s an interesting one. I live in a small town (~10K). It’s a fairly middle-class suburb of Dublin and the only place I’ve ever voted (but many times). Makes me curious if it’s different in other neighbourhoods.
i’ve lived in 11 cities in this country over the decades chasing work to maintain my health insurance and my experienced seemed normal to my neighbors who had lived there most of their lives as well.
most of those cities had a large proportion of transplants like me and their experiences mirrored mine.
North Houston Suburbs, no more than 20 minutes.
ditto when i moved to austin.
anecdotally: the length of the lines correlate with the wealth of the voting district. i think that texas is like arizona & georgia in that when the lines are long; they’re REALLY long compared to the long lines i experienced in california, new york, & illinois; but the short line places always seemed to be much emptier on election day for some reason.
For sure, my area isn’t necessarily more wealthy, but it is definitely more republican. Coincidence?
About an hour. New Zealand. Things weren’t well-organised that day.
Maybe 30 to 45 minutes in Merritt Island, Florida, back in 2004.
It was my first time voting, and I went with my parents after they were home from work, so it’s likely that that was the longest anyone there waited.
I’ve lived all over central Florida since, and have never had to wait at all, but that’s mostly because I do Early Voting or even Vote By Mail now.
I think there were like two couples and another person entering the building just ahead of me, so I had to wait 10 seconds until it was my turn to drop my envelope in the urn. This was in Switzerland, in a suburb of Zürich.
But more often I just walk in up to the box, say hello to the people organising and drop it in directly. I’ve never encountered a queue yet.
Oregon here 0 minutes. My ballot is delivered in the mail and I can drop it off at the post office or ballot drop box.
Colorado, same. I voted 3 weeks ago.
You can even stick it back into your mail box (with the flag up), and the mail man should pick it up.
Man I wish, we have to go to the post office to get mail in my town. They don’t deliver to houses.
My first presidential election was in 1980. I waited almost six hours to vote for Jimmy Carter in Iowa City, Iowa, USA (a medium-sized college town).
It was surprisingly festive. There were people walking the line handing out water and snacks. There were several musicians performing at various points along the line.
I remember rushing home, changing out of my uniform and jumping in line at the local library… and I stood there for like 4-6 hours in the freezing cold. Rosario Dawson, the actress, actually came by with donuts, back before the republicans outlawed providing food and water to people in voting lines. I actually took a picture of my wife with her, she was so kind. My wife and I were taking turns hiding in the car to stay warm, and saving a place in line. I couldn’t believe how cold and how long the line was. The shitty thing was that it was also extremely windy, the cold bit hard.
This was Atlanta, GA probably for the Biden/Trump election in 2020. I’ve voted early ever since, I walk in and out within like 15 minutes now. I’m not doing 4-6 hour lines ever again.
Edit: poll workers actually came out and designated someone as the last voter, and we stayed in line well past the normal close time. But, they had to get the last person who showed up before close.
poll workers actually came out and designated someone as the last voter
I did wonder about this. That’s cool to know and seems like a fair way to run it if you’re in the line before the station closes. Thanks for the insight.
Awesome about Rosario Dawson too!
The shitty thing is, the long lines are by design. Election officials are regularly closing polling locations in inner cities because ‘they don’t have the funding to keep so many open’, when the state government chooses not to fund them. Rural areas have always had quick in-and-out voting merely due to how many people they’re providing for. While increasing the wait times at inner city polling places causes some voters to either not get the chance to vote because either they’re not allowed to at some point, or the extra votes aren’t sent up because they were too late… or it causes people to go home instead of wait in the freezing cold ass line for 4-6 hours. Some people were complaining about 8 hour lines that year.
They cheat to win however they can.
They cheat to win however they can.
From the outside looking it it does appear that way but it seems so…un-American. I’ve spent a decent bit of time over there over the course of my life (north of 6 months total, mostly up and down both coasts) and I’m genuinely very fond of the US and its people and that has given me this internal sense of what “un-American” is if that isn’t a ludicrous statement.
The whole “rig things to your advantage” thing is really mask off at this point and I’m surprised that it’s tolerated.
From the outside looking it it does appear that way but it seems so…un-American.
it’s at our core and since our founding; things like the electoral college (the same one that’s helping trump win) were implemented to give the few wealthy people a way of preventing the masses of poor people from obtaining meaningful political representation. at the time of its inception, the few wealthy were slave owners and the masses of the poor were mostly immigrants with relatively strong abolitionist & populist views for the time.
I’ve spent a decent bit of time over there over the course of my life (north of 6 months total, mostly up and down both coasts) and I’m genuinely very fond of the US and its people and that has given me this internal sense of what “un-American” is if that isn’t a ludicrous statement.
i think it’s common if you don’t study the origin of this country deeply enough and i also think we all can be forgiven for not doing so since taking that action requires overcoming many obstacles designed to prevent you from doing so; also it’s depressing af and on too many levels.
It’s by state, and would never be tolerated where I live.
Unfortunately it seems to be a systemic issue with certain states. At one point several had federally monitored elections to prevent shenanigans but I don’t know if that’s true anymore
Unfortunately it seems to be a systemic issue with certain states. At one point several had federally monitored elections to prevent shenanigans but I don’t know if that’s true anymore
i think that you’re referring to the voting rights act of 1965 and it was rendered toothless by the supreme court in 2013 and it was created because of those systematic issues.
Australia (Sydney). A few years ago I went and there was a queue going outside the door and volunteers were telling people that it would take 30-45 minutes but to please stay in line. They were also handing out Tim Tams for people in line. I decided to try another polling station instead, which was 10-15 minutes walk away. There was no queue at all there so I was out within a couple minutes. So that one took the longest even though most of it was walking to another location. Wish there was a way to tell the people in that queue that other locations were empty.
Did you get your sausage?
I’ve actually never gotten sausage after voting 😬
Shambles. :)
3 hour wait to vote for Obama. Since then it’s been 20-30 minutes every time.
Portsmouth, Virginia here. The early in-person voting line was around the block and took over 2 hours to get through.
Granted it’s not as long as others, but it is a good sign when early voting lines are so long.
That’s not a good sign. That’s a sign that your government wants to keep people from voting. There should be more voting locations. Like, 5 to 10 times more.
If I remember correctly, Republicans in Georgia have consolidated voting locations in Atlanta–which is heavily Democratic–despite there being long line and hours of waiting in 2020. Is it intentional? 100%. In the rural parts of Georgia–and I’m pretty rural–you’re in and out in only slightly longer than it takes to read the ballot.
5 mins, new Zealand. The voting places are super empty because they open for multiple days.
