The weekend saw several states open up for early voting and when I checked our inbox this morning it was full of photos of long, snaking lines. Here is just a sample of some of what we received:
Michael Akinyele
Early voting begins in Prince Georges County, Maryland - 6-hour wait in line to vote on first day of early voting in MD.
Andrew Timleck
Early voting lines in west Baltimore, Park Heights neighborhood, where over 500 people were constantly streaming in to vote.
-While I'm Canadian, and can't vote, I went with my husband to early voting in Baltimore. Here in Maryland the right to marry is on the ballot, and its outcome affects us directly, and I wanted to at least engage how I could with the voting process, even if I couldn't vote myself. While there were only five stations in Baltimore (for a city of 600K !) we stopped at the second one and decided to do the wait in line there, in the Park Heights neighborhood, a proud, but challenged neighborhood that struggles under poverty, violence and crime. People were out in DROVES. There were over 500 people in line, and growing all the time. But it moved quickly (props to the voting clerks). And the spirit of folks in line was telling - people applauded - people applauded "first time" voters... "outed" by the clerks, lol, and the general mood was one of anticipation, excitement, and not because of the impending storm Sandy, but more because "We need to get this thing done."
The location was the Public Safety training facility, an old school. Interesting, as we waited, and shuffled a long, we were greeted by the signs above, normally for police cadets: INTEGRITY, COURAGE, and right before folks went in to vote, appropriately, the sign overhead before entering the gymnasium read "HONOR" - I can't think of words which more accurately describe the challenge to democracy in the past year and how, against suppression, threats, dispossession and disownership of people and their communities, how people still rose, with integrity, courage, and HONOR and CAST THEIR VOTES! YES!
Gregory Abplanalp, Las Vegas, NV
LGBT FAMILY with children waiting to vote in Vegas. We know of the ramifications of this election on our family.
Jordan Hew
Early Voting Line in Miami, Florida. 1 hour and 45 minutes from start to finish. October 29, 2012.
Meagan Rafferty, Savannah, GA
Waiting for the polls to open for early voting in Savannah, Ga.
Penny Phenix
Early Voting Line at 1:00 p.m. in Arlington, TX.
-I voted in Southeast Arlington, Texas at about 1:00 p.m. on Friday. The line only took 15-20 minutes to get through and had been pretty steady. The voters were very representative of the diversity in the area around the polling place.
David Magness, Merritt Island, FL
2:20 in line to vote and dozens of people just saw the line and left. The Ballot was two pages (18 inches long) front and back. This was the first day of early voting in Florida, and there were only 4 people working at the polls.
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Early voting has been under the gun from the Republicans, but now with Sandy about to disrupt voting its just another reason to have early voting. Hey is it okay if 200 million people don't get to cast their vote?
There are lot of extra issues to vote for on the ballot. You should pick up an unofficial copy and read it before you go to the polls. Have it with you marked and that will save you a lot of time in the voting both and move those line faster.
I don't understand why there is any early voting. Whats the point of having an Election Day if we have an election month?
Florida Dems - get thee to the polls!!!!
And not the Repubs???!!! Seems partisan to me.
I find waits like that ridiculous and it pisses me off.
Shows what they think our time spent huh! Another reason for absentee ballot!
I'm glad to see so many out to vote. I bet it pisses the republicans off. No reason for long lines. But I'm sure certain parts of the day, and the longer you wait. I found voting early very easy and I certainly beats going to the polls on voting day.
Oh, and by the way, I was notified in two days by email that my vote was recorded.
Nice to see so many people getting out to vote early!
What easy targets!
It is exciting to see so many people this enthusiastic about voting! Makes me Proud!
Quit yer whining about long waits. Go ahead and skip voting if its too inconvenient and perhaps sometime soon your right to do it will be taken from you altogether. You know, to relieve you of it being so much of a pain in the ass.
that's a bunch of stuff
ia,
we agree. voting should be made easier.
"Quit yer whining about long waits. Go ahead and skip voting if its too inconvenient"
How about this. Still vote. And let the board of elections know that your time is valuable and it is ridiculous to wait 6 hours in line and you expect them to do something about it?
Yes, it shouldn't be this hard. I spent about an hour and half in line early last Saturday morning (first early voting day in Florida). Heard from several voters who complained that there wasn't enough voting booths.
Seems to me one thing to do would be to organize volunteers to watch the lines and try to provide water, sodas, maybe small snacks, especially in places where the line is extra long like the 6 hour wait. Is there any group that's doing this kind of thing?
"Hey is it okay if 200 million people don't get to cast their vote?"
as far as the Rs are concerned, it is.
p.s. breaking records in illinois, too. especially in chicago.
In California we can vote early by mail and that's exactly what I did. I didn't want to chance a problem at the polls since I'm transient (live in a motel atm between jobs). I'm VERY grateful to be living in a state that makes it so easy to register and vote. You do have to have a picture ID when you register but it's been around so long there isn't really an issue. In California, it's pretty standard for people to have state issued IDs. Most of my family in Florida and Texas voted early as soon as the polls opened for early voting.
The only reason there are lines at all is because each voting booth is electronic, and they cost too much to buy enough of them. My state uses none of those, and we have almost no lines at all. Get rid of the DREs!
I waited in line for almost 4 hours to vote early....but I'm glad I did.
There are those who have given a lot more for the right to vote then four hours of their time.
great point, L6313.
So right L6313.......we owe it to them.
Waiting 6 hours?? So what exactly is the point of early voting? and don't any of these people work for a living? Wish I could leave work for 6 hours to go "vote"
What ever it take vote before Woolard outsources it!
I though his son was aready in the voting machine business. That is convenient, and such a man I would not trush to make honest voting machines.
Political sons.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/25/congressmans-son-resigns-from-campaign-over-scandal-related-to-voter-fraud/
No wait is too long to make sure Zomney doesn't take over.
http://youtu.be/6TiXUF9xbTo
We can only vote by mail or ballot drop-off box here in Oregon. The ballots go out about two weeks before election day so it gives you plenty of time to read up about the candidates and ballot measures if you haven't already made up your mind. No lines at the ballot drop-off boxes and no one trying to intimidate you or second-guess the voting registers. It's not as thrilling as pulling the lever in a voting booth, but it certainly seems more civilized to me.
I hear ya there....also we don't get the stickers that say "I voted"....still exciting to vote!
Just mailed my ballet in last week. I love Oregon's system.
Here in VA, we don't technically have "early voting"- just voting absentee in person for the two weeks prior to the election- and there has to be a legitimate reason to vote absentee. Surprisingly our Secretary of State Board of Elections (Republican)declared Saturday that all registered voters in Virginia are now eligible to vote absentee in person due to the storm and they extended hours at many local voter registration offices. I voted absentee-in-person today. There was a steady stream of 20-30 people in the office voting while I was there and it went pretty smoothly.
My daughter attends college two hours away and never received her absentee ballot in the mail- even though the Voter Registration office attests her ballot was mailed on October 1st. She had to come home to vote absentee-in-person this weekend.
I posted the link to the Secretary of the State Board of Elections below.
http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/Files/Media/Hurricane%20News%20Release.pdf
I posted the following on my FB page on October 18...
Today I worked at one of Guilford County's early voting locations, and wow, what an experience! Folks were lined up waiting for the building to open. And no break in the action for the five hours I was there. Then witnessing the voters who made this a priority...we had many with canes, some with walkers, others in wheelchairs. There was a blind voter and several on oxygen. Dizzy spells and Parkinson's Disease were no excuses to not vote. There was even one voter who was obviously short of breath, but ALL of these people exercised their right to vote. If they could overcome these obstacles, I don't know a single one of my Facebook friends who has any excuse not to vote.
So cool!!! Our small town of 12,000 had already had over 1700 early voters as of last Thursday when we voted!!
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Here in Oregon we have Vote-by-Mail. Highly reliable. Easy to do. We even get our voting pamphlets a few days in advance so that we're prepared before we get the ballets in the mail. I highly recommend it and urge people to urge their own states to go that route.
Hooray for people waiting for hours to vote, but really, it's ridiculous to expect people go to such lengths to exercise their civic duty when there are far better methods such as vote by mail. As Rachel says, we should make it easier, not harder, for people to vote. I'll echo my fellow Oregonians here in endorsing our vote by mail system. Of course for the party of elephants, making it harder for so many is a feature not a bug, so I don't expect anything to change soon. But I have another concern and that is: with so many having already voted and now power outages... will votes disappear (either accidentally or not)?
This gives me hope! Maybe signs of a backlash against GOP attempts to limit voters?
Yes, we should make it easier for people to vote. Let's work on that after this election so that the next election will be better.
But in the meantime, bring stuff to do while you wait in line, bring snacks to share, bring the attitude that nothing is going to stop you from participating in our democracy. Don't give up until you cast your ballot. This is the power of the people.
Why can't these states implement vote-by-mail? We've been doing it for years here in Oregon with zero problems. Vote from your living room table and send it in!