How were the lines at the polls?
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How were the lines at the polls?
| Tue, 11-04-2008 - 7:27am |
I thought it might be fun for those of us who vote today to report in as they do.
| Tue, 11-04-2008 - 7:27am |
I thought it might be fun for those of us who vote today to report in as they do.
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Turns out I had plenty of time to drink my Starbucks. I got there 40 minutes early, not a car in sight. I enjoyed my coffee, read the paper, listened to NPR.
At about 6:50 I went inside the Vets memorial building and the door to the polling place was open so I waited inside. We had three precincts in the same room. I was the first to vote -- the poll workers told me that we have tons of polling places and precincts in CA, more than is typical for much of the nation so they didn't anticiapte much in the way of wait times.
I'm from Connecticut. We vote at an elementary school. It seemed extremely busy, but the poll workers kept the line moving very well.
We had 2 propositions on the ballot; one was to permit Constitutional conventions to permit ammendments to our state Constitution and the other was to allow 18 year olds who will be 18 on the election day to vote in the Primaries.
Based on the capacity of the parking lot, I'd say we were at leat 3 times busier than usual.
~ SW
Personally I believe the right to have Constitutional conventions is long overdue. My best guess is what prompted it this year was when our Supreme Court decided gay marriage was OK. Regarding the pre-primary thing, if you're 17 and intersted enough to register you should have a say in what candidate will be your nominee.
Now for some fun, watch the action in Massachusetts, where they are voting to repeal the state income tax.
12 pages....bleech!
We're lucky. Our ballots are really simple and the same design/standard for every election (municipal, provincial, federal) across the country. They also don't pad the ballots/elections with extra stuff.
http://www.joeydevilla.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/sample_ballot.gif
It's nice getting everyone's perspective on their voting experience. :o)
I live in a city-suburb of NYC in NJ.
I arrived at my polling station at 7:30 AM. The streets near the school were crowded with folks parking, so I figured I shouldn't bother with trying to find a space there. When I arrived at the school, the line stretched around the front of the building. I heard it was much worse at 6 AM when the polls opened. Some had been in line since 5:30 or so.
I voted about one hour later. If my last name had begun with P-Z, I would have had an even shorter wait. (I brought a book.) As I left, I noticed the lines were much shorter than they were at 7:30.
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