Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion OT: How long was your wait at the polls today?

If you live in the US and if you voted My family lives scattered across the country and it is interesting that the wait times have ranged from 30 minutes to over 5 hours.

I went before work and waited about 30 minutes at a rural PA polling site.

Voted mid-morning in my small MN city (pop 16,000). No wait at all - yay! Upon entering the building, DS4 announced to all there, "I'm voting for puffy, guffy, and mr. creep!"

Wow - i remember a wait of about 2 hours when i lived in a big city, but 5 hours - yikes! Good for everyone for sticking it out.

I always vote adsentee ballot, otherwise I'd never get a chance to vote, too busy. So it took about 10 minutes and a walk to my mailbox:)

25 mins in the SE. It was an extra 10 minutes since they had the lines organized by last name to check you in. I was in the longest line with 2 folks ahead of me that had address issues... Many people originally in line behind me were done voting while I was still waiting for last name checkin. I am in a state that has already had over 40% of the population go to the polls in early voting.

About 45 minutes total this morning in the SE also. We had the last name check in too that made it take longer. Still I thought 45 minutes wasn't too bad! People who early voted waited 2 hours or more.

I walked right into the polling place at the kids' school and let DS drop my absentee ballot into the ballot box at 8:15 am. No other voters were there. As I left, someone came in to vote.

Well the 5 hour wait was my BIL who did early voting on Saturday. My Sister waited to vote today at the same polling place and waited less than an hour.

We had the same electronic voting machines that I've seen since I started voting at 18. We also took DS 9 with us. He has gone every year and the poll site voluneteers know him and make a fuss out of his being there so bright and early. He had lots of questions this year about how you vote. I think the gentleman ahead of us in line was quite amused as I gave a civics lesson while we waited.

I was voter 43 at 7:20 this morning

I just voted about an hour ago and had no wait at all. I was in and out in under 10 minutes, and there were open voting machines sitting empty. In Ohio, we have the lovely experience of voting electronically with touch screens. A paper ballot is printed inside the machine as you cast your vote electronically.

elh... I love civic lessons in line. I think the whole constitutional process make more sense to kids when they see it in action!

I early voted on Friday and waited 4 hours with DS6. The poll workers said that there hadn't been a line shorter than 3 hours in the whole 2 weeks they'd been opened. Though, I have to say, I was so proud of DS6. He *really* wanted to do kids voting, so he stuck it out with me and behaved wonderfully, but when it was finally our turn to vote they told us the kids voting was only on Tuesday! I felt so bad for him.

I went in just after 1 p.m., so I won't help you with the early voting questions. But I had no wait at all. I just walked right in.

The place was busy. Lots of people there. We just have lots of voting booths in my polling place, so it didn't matter.

When I walked out, there were 3 people waiting to check in, but lots of booths open. Only one place to check in, so there was a bottleneck.

we live in NY so we had the good ole crank machines! I think is this the last time they are going to use them, which makes me sad

anyway DS7 came in with me and helped me pull the level!

We had no wait..... but it was crowded at other districts, they had to wait about a half and hour or so. Our district has a large population of older voters that usually come later. We went @ 8:30 before school.

Went in about 7:30am, about 20 min wait. I like to vote at the polls. It feels more civic voting this way then absentee. I like seeing my neighbors, some dressedd in there red white and blues. I tell everyine to vote and vote often. lol

Out in the middle of the Pacific, voting has been smooth.

I voted last week with about a 3 minute wait.

DH voted this morning on his way to work. Took him about 10 minutes, mostly because he got ther right at starting time and they were still getting set up.

I voted about an hour after the polls opened in my state. I walked in and went right through with no wait. There were about six voting stations set up, which looked more like lecterns than booths. Much different this time around. Dottie, we had paper ballots too.

It's fun to compare notes.

Got there at 4:03 p.m., walked in, stood behind a lady at the check-in while she searched for her ID, then she sent her son back out to her car for it. She looked annoyed when I asked to go ahead of her, tuff. I was checked in and voting by the time her kid got back in with her ID.
We are in Ohio but use paper ballots with fill in the bubble.

The longest line I have seen in 16 years. Saw most of my neighbors while waiting. Paper ballots.

Took Mr W with me. He was flirting with everyone. We played pattycake to pass the time. Two people asked how old he was and got real quiet when I told them.

We had electronic touch machines that tabulated as you voted. Interesting story: last week someone came by to see if I had voted yet (DH was at home so he relayed the info). Well, today I voted. I pulled into the driveway, closed the garage door and not more than 90 seconds later, the doorbell rings. Someone from one of the 2 major parties was at my doorstep checking to see if I voted and if I didn't mind, letting them know who I voted for!!! It was amazing...and a bit creepy. I didn't see this person's car or anything out front although it could have been down the hill. I think this person was awaiting my return! Could this be poli-stalking??? Voter-stalking??? Let the creative labelling flow...

I had about a 15 minute wait, but even though I brought a book, my line-mate struck up a conversation with me - turns out we live 6 houses away from each other.

We had those weird new scanners - pretty cool. Although I was there at 8am, 534 people had already voted.

My biggest question is - do I allow DS12 to stay up and watch the polical coverage, and if so, how much past bedtime?
Grinity

Why not?

I was 6 for my first election. I stayed up until I fell over!!

We are taking W out to an Irish pub for the returns. He'll probably crash on my shoulder at 9 or so.

I vote for letting DS12 stay up. This is historic anyway you slice it
Also, this would be something that someone should remember for the rest of their life! One of those..."I remember when we first elected y or z..." stories to tell the kids/grandkids/great grandkids one day.

BTW - we have also been inundated with telephone calls, recorded messages from the candidates themselves and pollsters! I can't wait to safely answer the phone again and just be harassed by my regular telemarketing callers!!!

LOL. I think I know what is going on.

I hear via the grapevine that there is a bit of a panic going on in at least two states.

Our address/phones of record is/are not where we live/answer most of the time. This makes things very peaceful during the week. We did get a hint of it last night when we dropped in to vote today. Three calls right when W went to bed. ARRHHG!!!

We've pretty much only gotten robocalls. We have an unlisted number.

Funny story. My parents live in a small community and one of their friend's children was making calls for a candidate. The friend actually *knew* the people they were calling but the recipients of the call had no idea who was on the other line.

She was horrified that her townfolk were swearing and verbally abusing her!

She was like, "I can't believe that sweet little old lady down the street just called me a: $#@&***&@%#$@!!!!!!!!!!!!

I read that to DH, 'Neato.

ROFLPIMP!

She was horrified that her townfolk were swearing and verbally abusing her!

She was like, "I can't believe that sweet little old lady down the street just called me a: $#@&***&@%#$@!!!!!!!!!!!![/quote]

That is so funny! I guess she got a taste of what her neighbors might be like when no one is looking

OK here was today's weirdness...

I got a call from a candidate for the state house's campaign. The person asked if I voted and if I voted for that candidate. I told them that I did vote and I decline to state who I voted for.

The person calling was my current boss!

Boss told me it was OK if I voted for the other candidate.

I replied I generally don't tell people how I voted. It's up to each person to decide for himself.

Man, this is a small town I live in...

Wow Corinna!
That does beat all weirdness ((cue:Twilight Zone Music))
I hope that otherwise they are a good boss

We're on the no call list, so perhaps that's why we didn't get any inquiries. Also, our state was assumed to be blue form the get-go- it may be that the swing states are the ones where people were making those calls.

Love your story, Neato! Hi Corrina's is just kind of creepy- who wants to tell their boss which way they vote?

Nope, Lorel. We're on the no-call list, too. Yet we have been BOMBARDED by calls, all of the automated variety!

I didn't actively count, but I know that I got more than 8 a day for the past two weeks. (We had 4-6 on our answering machine virtually every afternoon when we got home from pre-K pickup.) Often we'd get the same commercial twice in an hour.

We're in a battleground state, so some of that's to be expected. But OMG!!! I was WISHING for a real person to call so that I could tell who I was voting for and get them to take me off the "Bug her 'til she cracks" list!

DH and I were joking about how lonely I'll be now that the election is over and my phone isn't going to be ringing every 10 minutes with calls from politicians! And of course, there's the "I'll vote for whoever calls me the least." That was really popular around here this year! Argh!

I'm pretty sure the no call list has exceptions for political calls.

I was very happy that we recently got caller ID, though, so I avoided many of the calls. I got some live callers a few times, and tried talking to them, but they just kept reading their script! I just started hanging up.

My recycling box will be happy the election is over too.

Yes, politics and charities are exceptions to the no-call list. As are consumer surveys. Ugh.

Maybe we ought to offer to donate to the campaigns if they'll stop calling us. I'd give $5 to each side if it meant they'd leave me completely alone! (Kidding!)

Moving helps to. In my non-battleground state, I don't think I got a single call from a presidential candidate. I did get about one a day for a local race, and those were all recorded. We don't watch TV and we only listen to NPR, so the only ads I dealt with were postcards which are quickly recycled. It was all pretty sane around here.

LOL, we were getting over 20 calls a day the last 2 weeks from political campaigns. Of course we have a multigenerational household so we hit different age brackets as well as both big parties and an registered independent...

DS 9 was really facinated with the whole process and we did let him stay up until about 10 to watch and track the returns. I loved the CNN website. They had a interactive map. It updated once a state was "won" but you could click on each state and allocate the electoral votes according to you ideas. I filled it in and printed it out, then DS did it. It was really interesting to see how close we came to predicting the states. (I did do better than DS, however, I think part of that was because his favorite color is Blue :))

I feel so sorry for those of you who got deluged with calls. I hate answering surveys and I think I would have blown a gasket if I had 8-10 calls a day or more. Yikes!