Can someone please explain why Americans have to queue for several hours to vote? Do they have a shortage of ballot boxes or pencils or similar?

[Fillyjonk]

It has always confused me

Also, apparently, in many areas they HAVE to use electronic devices to vote which are manurfactured by a big Republican donor AND the inner workings of this machine are a trade secret (big }

honestly, from the outside American elections just seem so corrupt. They make our border-changing practices look quite reasonable.

ok back to meso isomers

I have been known to walk into our little Community centre and see two others waiting. I announced I didn't have time and would come back later
I registered for postal voting the next time.

'Course for us it never seems as big a thing.
If the option was another 4 years of a Bush-type government with that horrendous doofus of a woman in joint power, then I'm bloody sure I'd wait for 4 hours as well to vote Obama.

Oh God, what if they're waiting 4 hours to vote Republican!?!

It doesn't bear thiking about. Sarah Palin in charge of the Free World if anything happened to McCain.

You think she'd pop him off after a couple of months. I give him the life expectancy of an Alaskan bear if they win.

Flame I want commission for recommending your site so much (another thread)

Don't say that sorky!!!

That was to voting repulican, not commission

don't recommend the site? or don't say she'll hunt him dressed in the fur spoils of the last 3 kills she made?

"Oh God, what if they're waiting 4 hours to vote Republican!?! "

they are not just voting for a new president, and they are expecting 153 million people to vote, that is more than double the entire UK population, so queing is likely.

Oh hehe I see!

I dunno, I'm a bit of a junkie for this sort of stuff and it just worries me that they let them vote at all, when you see some of the interviews given on the street.

It's so depressing that they might just refuse to learn any lesson from the last 2 terms.

J McCain was rallying last night and said what I would honestly have considered to be the greatest campaign killer of all.
He said they would "Win in Afghanistan and win in Iraq and their troops would come home victorious".

"they are not just voting for a new president, and they are expecting 153 million people to vote, that is more than double the entire UK population, so queing is likely. "

yes but

1. we don't wait 5 hours, do we?

1. They also, because they are bigger, presumably have the opportunity for more ballot boxes

1. I mean, seriously, if there really IS such a huge problem, in the interests of voter turnout there must be some better solution. Seriously. 5 hours?

The most telling interview for me was some hick sounding bloke saying "Well he ain't said he is a muslim, but you can't be sure can you?"

I mean, WTF?!?!

People are willing to queue because they feel strongly that they want their chosen candidate to be elected. I did say to DH yesterday that I couldn't imagine anyone in the UK queueing to vote.

How nice would it be though, if we got a 90% turnout in the UK (I heard that figure on the Channel 4 news the other day) - if people really cared about who governs the country? I imagine that were that to happen, there may just be a few queues (last time I voted, my polling station was a portakabin in the MFI carpark - I kid you not).

You know the big rock the vote stuff?

Maybe they could redirect some of their funding into ballot boxes and pencils

I am thinking that it is probably quite hard to get teenagers to stand in line for 5 hours to make a few pencil marks on a bit of paper, even if Bruce Springsteen DID tell them it would be rather helpful.

But it seems (to my unamerican eye) corrupt! this makes interesting reading

oh the muslim stuff infuriates me

At least in the UK, I HOPE someone would have said by now "WHY ON EARTH DOES IT MATTER?"

Oh yes because all muslims are plotting to take over our governments from within, in order to direct our taxes into al quaida's bank account. Ohhh yes.

I'd queue for a January sale but it'd have to be a good one.

I understand the point about a huge turnout, but really do agree that more people could've been drafted in to help with the process.

Ours is in a Community centre with 3 ladies manning it for I think 15 hours. If you have to wait they make you a cup of tea and a digestive , but most of the time it's straight in/out.

Well they did have to wait for a week before the result was confirmed and even then it was a fixed result....

Could be either Zimbabwe or America couldn't it?

aaaargh at 2001

he didn't bloody WIN, the court challenge ran out of time which may not be unrealted to the fact that the bush family owns most of florida

Truly, this is worthy of zimbabwe BUT what got me was that they then RE-ELECTED him 4 years later!

EXACTLY!

I was in LA at the last election and went with ds's IL's to the voting station. There was a shortish queue but the procedure was complicated. I think it was electronic (no bits of paper/pencils) and they had loads of different things to vote on. If you have to make decisions on 20 different issues I guess queues will build up pretty quickly.

Scotland's vote last year was chaotic, what with national and local elections going on, lots of confused people, apparently. Not that we got to vote - we were disenfranchised.

oh god don't get me started on the electronic voting system

see post below about republican donors

I still don't see why they can't just have more machines. Or pencils. Or whatever it is they need. But surely, surely voter turnout should matter more than giving business to Republican donors?

So you're saying the machines are somehow rigged to not register votes for certain candidates?

In last year's election in Nigeria, our driver was still queuing to vote when they announced the winner!

sue, we actually have no way of telling, because the interal workings of the machine are a trade secret

There was a story about Oprah Winfrey having difficulty in voting with one. I mean, joking aside, you'd think they'd wheel out the creme de la creme of voting machines for Oprah.

i heard today on the news that in some places they had a lot of things to vote for - eg California had some propositions ( referendum questions), president, judges and so on.