Marcio Ferreira wrote: Matt, you are taking your own experience as standard? What about the people who had to wait for hours, I am not the one saying that, the news are saying that. I just believe that American people deserve more consideration of their government when exercising the most important right of a democratic nation. I am glad it does not affect everyone. I just think if should not be a problem for ANYONE.

 

If we take the average of everyone who has responded so far in this thread, both early voting and today, I think you'd come somewhere around a half hour.  Most are not waiting hours to vote.  The lines I saw this morning in Los Angeles were all people waiting in line prior to the polls opening.  It was not indicative of the lines once the doors opened.  Every single person I spoke to in the office today said it took a half hour or less to vote. What you hear on the news are the minority of places where it's taking longer.  Of course the news is reporting that.  It's sensationalist.  They'd report that first rather than "In and out in ten minutes.  Back to you, John!"

In any event, there will always be problems with polling places.  There was one here in Los Angeles that lost power.  The lines there were longer.  Oh well.  What do you do.  For the vast majority, however, the lines even in this impressive turnout are nowhere near the length you are hearing they are in Brazil and certainly not anything to get your undies in a twist over.  Waiting for something you want to do isn't inherently bad.  We do it all the time.  No different here.

I voted at 3:45pm and it took only 10 minutes.(Michigan)

Can't read it, sorry Marcio.

As a point of reference, there's a polling station right across the street from where I work.  The line has only been 8 people long at it's greatest length and for most of the day there hasn't been a line at all.  I think any information you're hearing that the voting situation in the US today is bad is sensationalist and not indicative of the vast majority of voters here.

Yes, it's different from state to state.  Does that mean that there are three hour waits for a vast majority of Americans today?  No.  Also, I'd want to know if that three hours in Orlando is at a specific polling place or is citywide.  There can be malfunctions and, as I said earlier, power outages where waits can be long.  News services pick that up, leave off the "why", and you hear it takes three hours to vote. 

In any event, it's not wide spread.  It's not bad all over the US.  It's not even bad in half or a quarter of the US.  It's in specific, localized polling locations and those instances are not, at all, indicative of the vast majority of the United States.

Don't these people have to work?

Election day should be a national holiday