Why the long waits to vote?

[Dr Adequate]

As to the question of why "results" are declared early, they aren't. Unofficial "exit poll" statistics are reported, but statistics aren't results. There is nothing binding about what a person says to a pollster.

I think what Rolfe means is that once the polls in one state (or, indeed, precinct, as in Dixville Notch) have closed, they can count and declare the votes while polls are still open in other states.

That's right, isn't it? Otherwise I'm going to have to seriously revise my schedule for tonight.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Sorry, but your going to have to explain that one to me.

I'm guessing it's a reference to Florida 2000, where they declared the result before they counted the votes.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

I'm guessing it's a reference to Florida 2000, where they declared the result before they counted the votes.

Maybe, but I'm not clear what that would have to do with either my post or the subject of the thread.

 

[WildCat]

I'm guessing it's a reference to Florida 2000, where they declared the result before they counted the votes.

By "they" you mean the media?

 

[Wildy]

For a glimpse of how long and complex USA ballot papers can be:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45172000/jpg/_45172668_vote04_9.jpg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45172000/jpg/_45172591_vote04_7.jpg

That looks like the ballots for the Senate over here.

Then again I didn't bother assigning preferences for all the choices. I just put a "1" above the line.

 

[Twilek]

The only election I stood in line for was the 2000 election, when I lived in Phoenix AZ. It was at a school about a mile from my apartment, and took about 20-30 minutes, I'd say. I made it part of my daily exercise routine, jogging over and back with voter registration card and ID in hand.

Since then I've been in Canada and requested absentee ballots. Short, sweet and simple.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Eh.....what?

There are voting stations open on days other than voting day?

I guess you haven't read the news lately? Many states allowed early voting.

Any evidence of "(t)he length of the ballot"?

I received a sample ballot from my local board of elections when I got my voter notification. I have it in front of me now. My ballot had 29 separate things to vote on. (The national races, several state races, retaining judges, 2 state constitutional amendments and 3 state initiatives.)

Some of my near neighbors would have the same ballot plus one other special tax issue. In the suburbs here, they had the same ballot plus a metro extension issue.

Also, the paper ballot option here is an optical scan sheet. To cast your vote you have to blacken in an oval with a pen or pencil. It takes quite a bit longer to fill in these ovals than it did to use the old punch cards. On the other hand, all they need for voting "booths" are lots of long tables, pens and those cardboard privacy screens. So once you've gone through line for them to identify you in the registration books and give you a ballot, many more people can vote at the same time.

It seems that a whole lot of evidence is claimed, even though the election is still taking place.

What the hell is going on here?

This seems to me as if this election was rigged in advance. Because, how else could one claim any of the above?

Any evidence for your claim that the election was rigged in advance?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

While these other points are valid (the length of the ballot, for example), the biggest single reason is volume.

Record levels of people registered to vote for the first time. The turnout is expected to be unprecedented.

Also, even though the polls are open all day long, people who work regular jobs mostly work at similar hours, so you get surges of people in the same time periods. One is early morning (before work)--say about 6 am to 8 am. Another, I think, will be at lunch time. Then the biggest one will be after work 5-7 pm. (The way it's done here, if you arrive at the polling place by 7 pm, you will be allowed to vote, no matter how long the lines are. I expect people will be voting here until at least 8 pm--probably later than that.)

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

sorry . . duplicate post

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

While these other points are valid (the length of the ballot, for example), the biggest single reason is volume.

Record levels of people registered to vote for the first time. The turnout is expected to be unprecedented.

Also, even though the polls are open all day long, people who work regular jobs mostly work at similar hours, so you get surges of people in the same time periods. One is early morning (before work)--say about 6 am to 8 am. Another, I think, will be at lunch time. Then the biggest one will be after work 5-7 pm. (The way it's done here, if you arrive at the polling place by 7 pm, you will be allowed to vote, no matter how long the lines are. I expect people will be voting here until at least 8 pm--probably later than that.)

But those factors are not necessarily unique to the US or unpredictable. Peak flows early morning, lunchtime and evening would also be a feature of a UK election for example, but there would be nothing like the length of queues reported. Of course the UK has a low tech (cross on a bit of paper) system so can cope with higher volumes voting at the same time (all that is needed is a pencil and somewhere private to put your cross) and the process takes a lot less time than appears to be required at least in some parts of the US.

Was record voter registration accompanied by an increase in the number of voting machines available? If not, why not?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Was record voter registration accompanied by an increase in the number of voting machines available? If not, why not?

Voting details are handled by each state. Here, we have either a touch-screen computer voting machine, or the optical scan paper ballot. The touch-screen computers are quite expensive, so I doubt we have significantly more of these in play this year than for an off-year election (like the 2006 elections--when we voted for congress people, plus state and local stuff-- but not for president, and the turn out is always substantially lower for those).

The optical scan ballots are new. I think they help immensely since no machine is required to cast the vote. (Even the punch cards, required a booth that actually held the ballot, and you'd slip the punch card into the slot so you knew which holes to punch.) As I said, it takes a lot longer to fill in the oval, but at my polling place, the voting "booths" were great long cafeteria tables with little cardboard screens at each chair giving you a bit of privacy. I'd guess there were at least 100 people voting simultaneously when I was there.

I think there were only something like 3 touch screen systems set up for each precinct at my polling place.

Still, the biggest slow down is getting people into the correct line and matching up their ID with their registration in the books. There are election judges from both major parties, and lots of new voters who might not know which line to stand in and so on. (I guess I should have mentioned that most polling places cover more than one precinct. Mine had 3 precincts--the signage was very good, and I didn't see any great confusion going on. Things were really running smoothly.)

ETA: I guess it's a long-winded way of saying it's about the same as traffic jams at rush hour. When you have increased volume, even in if a large volume is moving smoothly through, you'll have slow downs. Of course if you have an "accident" (someone's name doesn't appear or ID is challenged), then that line comes to a halt while it's resolved.

 

[technoextreme]

But those factors are not necessarily unique to the US or unpredictable. Peak flows early morning, lunchtime and evening would also be a feature of a UK election for example, but there would be nothing like the length of queues reported. Of course the UK has a low tech (cross on a bit of paper) system so can cope with higher volumes voting at the same time (all that is needed is a pencil and somewhere private to put your cross) and the process takes a lot less time than appears to be required at least in some parts of the US.

Was record voter registration accompanied by an increase in the number of voting machines available? If not, why not?

Yeah but we've all ready established that just be the nature of our elections that it's going to be longer because apparently we do more voting.

 

[geni]

But those factors are not necessarily unique to the US or unpredictable. Peak flows early morning, lunchtime and evening would also be a feature of a UK election for example, but there would be nothing like the length of queues reported.

Issues in NI turn up from time to time although it is suspected that has something to do with parties dragging out supporters at the last minute.

Mainland well I've stood in top of welsh hills in the rain that had more activity than some UK polling stations.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Yeah but we've all ready established that just be the nature of our elections that it's going to be longer because apparently we do more voting.

It will definitely be longer. The question is how much longer - if the difference was down to how long it takes to vote in 20 odd different ballots compared to one, then that would be one thing, but the difference (at least as reported from some polling stations) is that people are waiting hours before they even get given the paper to start voting. That cannot be explained simply by the different number of votes required.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Also, while they know how many new registrants there were, they don't know what turnout will be like. Everyone here was expecting record levels. We've got absolutely gorgeous "Indian Summer" weather here in Missouri, so the turnout is likely to be at the high end of the range of expectations.

Even so, knowing what to expect doesn't magically make more resources available. The Board of Elections did what they could.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Maybe, but I'm not clear what that would have to do with either my post or the subject of the thread.

I'm sorry, I only replied by quoting you because it was a quote from your link that I used. It was just a snarky dig at how in US elections the newspapers like to announce the result (and talk about it as if it is a real result) on the basis of exit polls etc before all the votes have been counted and checked and the official announcement made.

 

[Rolfe]

Sorry, but your going to have to explain that one to me.

I think she means that we have a preference for waiting until the polls have closed before we start to count the votes, then we wait till the votes are all counted before we announce the result.

I think she was thus remarking, in an oblique sort of way, that in the US these things may not happen in that order at all....

Rolfe.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

It was just a snarky dig at how in US elections the newspapers like to announce the result (and talk about it as if it is a real result) on the basis of exit polls etc before all the votes have been counted and checked and the official announcement made.

I don't think they've done anything like that while voting is still going on in a loooong time. I also think since 2000, they've made a real effort to be a lot more careful.

As far as making calls based on vote counts as the precincts come in (as opposed to relying on exit polls), I think that's perfectly fine. They tell us so and so is ahead by 10% with 43% of precincts reported. Based on which precincts have been counted, you can make pretty safe predictions and "call" a winner before all the votes are counted.

They can make the "call" as long as they still are reporting the actual numbers.

ETA: FWIW, the candidates do the same thing. Concession and victory speeches usually happen well before results are certified.

 

[Rolfe]

I think what Rolfe means is that once the polls in one state (or, indeed, precinct, as in Dixville Notch) have closed, they can count and declare the votes while polls are still open in other states.

That's right, isn't it? Otherwise I'm going to have to seriously revise my schedule for tonight.

That wasn't me, actually. I think it was Darat.

However, the post linked to a BBC story where results which showed that results had already been announced, apparently officially, well before any poll could possibly have closed. I think, looking at it, this was because every single voter in a very small community had voted, and thus there was nobody left to vote at that polling station. Inexplicably, they then counted just these 17 results and announced them.

This definitely wouldn't happen in Britain, as all ballots are kept until the polls close before counting starts. And results are announced on a constituency basis, not by polling place or small village. I find the opening of a ballot box while the polls are still theoretically open to be very strange, even if we know no more papers can go in that particular box.

I also find the practice of starting the count as soon as the polls close in the eastern states, while the western states are still voting, to be very odd. News of early results could surely influence voting patterns in the west? Or indeed, make people in the west feel their vote is meaningless.

In Britain obviously there is no time zone difference (at present!), but for European elections we go one better. We vote three days before most of mainland Europe. And even though we are a completely different country and have separate constituencies and so on, we still keep the ballots secure and uncounted until the last of the polls close in western Europe on their polling day.

Rolfe.

 

[geni]

I think she means that we have a preference for waiting until the polls have closed before we start to count the votes, then we wait till the votes are all counted before we announce the result.

I think she was thus remarking, in an oblique sort of way, that in the US these things may not happen in that order at all....

Rolfe.

Except the UK is one timezone. We also tend to have results in place before northern Ireland has even started counting.