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20061107 Tuesday November 07, 2006

Voting Sucks This morning, I stopped by my local voting center to vote. When I got there, the line seemed awful long (maybe a 30 minute wait), so I left. My goal was to come back around 2:30 in the afternoon, when the line would (hopefully) be a lot shorter. Of course, I got caught up with work and didn't make it back until 5:00.

It figures, now I'm standing in an enormously long line (est. 2-3 hour wait). Oh well, it's a nice night - currently 68°F. I can't help but think that there's quite a few folks who won't vote because the lines are so long. I know I'm awful tempted to abandon ship. ;-)

Update: My total time standing in line turned out to be 2:45. Apparently, the long waits were due to overwhelmed computer systems. Here's a great quote:

The system became so bogged down by 1 p.m. that election officials were forced to shut down the computers and reboot them, Dillard said.

Sounds like they were running Windows, doesn't it? The one cool part of the night was Mayor Hickenlooper came by to thank all the everyone for their patience. Posted in General at Nov 07 2006, 05:47:35 PM MST 11 Comments

Comments:

I hate to rub it in, but in Allen, TX it took me all of 17 minutes from the time I got in line til the time I returned my PC card to the voting administrator. Either way, 3 hours or 17 mins, both are too long, and are the reason voter turnout sucks. Voting should be as easy as going through a McDonalds drive thru. Then the US will get the voter turnout it needs. Erik

Posted by Erik Weibust on November 07, 2006 at 09:18 PM MST #

A part of me is surprised at the wide range of experiences that people have trying to vote, but maybe it makes sense. It took me under 10 minutes total. But then, I vote at a church that is about 100 ft. away from my place, and I live in the quasi-ghetto so voter turnout is extremely thin.

Posted by earl on November 07, 2006 at 10:20 PM MST #

Come in France where You vote in 10 minutes in the worste case, and with real paper that is absolutly bug free!

Posted by G. on November 08, 2006 at 12:21 AM MST #

I live in one of the most crowded areas in Germany and I have never waited longer than one minute to put my vote on a pice of real paper. And after that there have never been problems to count these votes. Pen & paper isn't deprecated yet ;)

Posted by Hendrik on November 08, 2006 at 01:41 AM MST #

I'm really glad my wife and I voted absentee this year. She dropped the ballots off last week. The Westridge Rec. Center by my house in Highlands Ranch, CO. was open until at least Midnight. I heard some guy at the Eastdridge Rec. Center waited 4.5 hours. When I got home last night the cars over-flowed the Rec. Center parking lot and went 4 or 5 blocks on either side.
The other thing that happened was at midnight the machines malfunctioned because it was a different day than election day.

I wonder what the ratio of machines per voting center was VS. the precinct way it was done before? There were a lot of machine malfunctions too but I wonder how much this contributed to it.

Posted by Greg Ostravich on November 08, 2006 at 09:23 AM MST #

I had a pleasant experience in my precinct where I voted at the City Center here in Littleton Colorado. I went at 8:00 in the morning with my son and a bag of toys in tow as I was anticipating a line. I was quite surprised to be the only one there and I walked right up and voted. The older ladies that were to help with voting played with Ian and fed him doughnuts while I voted. The wide range of experiences / delays seemed to be dependant on location.

Posted by Shelly on November 08, 2006 at 09:43 AM MST #

early voting rocks. was in and out in about a half hour.

Posted by stephen o'grady on November 08, 2006 at 12:28 PM MST #

Or, come in Brazil where you vote in 5 seconds and the e-voting system really works :)

Posted by Diego Pires Plentz on November 08, 2006 at 02:50 PM MST #

Or, come to belgium! In the cities where there's still voting with pen and paper you're done in just a few minutes. Where they're using computers, it usually takes a few hours...

Posted by Koen on November 09, 2006 at 12:34 AM MST #

Our stay in the USA and come to Oregon where everybody votes via mail-in ballots. We get our ballots approximately 3 weeks in advance and can turn them in anytime. Watching the news and seeing people waiting in line to vote seemed so quaint. :P

Posted by Victor on November 10, 2006 at 12:16 PM MST #

I stood in line at the WP rec center for an hour and a half. Here's my take on the fiasco: http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-GZdjLQo9erRo._7.3Vg2S4SpDJUiFw--?cq=1&p=32 There are rumors MS Access was involved. Not sure though. Sure feels like it.

Posted by Larry Sherrill on November 13, 2006 at 07:16 PM MST #

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