About 1 p.m. I went to an early voting location (the first on the list) the Aventura Government Center. People near the front of the line, still outside - Arnie and Patricia - said they had been waiting 2 1/2 hours. Patricia said she has been voting since 1945 and never had to wait like this. Less than halfway down the line, Tobi, Lionell and Tangela said they had been waiting an hour and a half. (see their photos by hitting read more and hit on all photos to enlarge them). I asked Tobi if she minded waiting. She said: "Do I have a choice." What is happening around town? Any reports? Looks like Congress Kendrick Meek wasn't happy, according to the Miami Herald:"Meek delivered a strong message from his Miami Gardens office...outraged at long lines that in some places had people waiting up to five hours to vote."
Coral Reef Library voters are also reporting 2 1/2 hour waits at 2:00 p.m. Boy, early voting sucks in Miami! After 3 hour lines for Kerry/Bush you would have thought Elections learned something.
I blame the long ballots with those 6 long, confusing State Questions and also the 6 long County Questions. The Questions are impossible to understand without a translation by someone who has read about them on-line or in the newspaper. People have been calling me for advice on them.
11 comments:
2 yrs ago i tried early voting 3 seperate times and was unable to do so bc of long waits..
however on actual election day i went to my own precinct and was in and out in less than 5 minutes.
of course this is a big election that is bringing huge crowds to the polls, but there only a few precincts open during early voting, if you go to your own precinct on actual election day i guarantee you will not be waiting 2 hours.
do not get discouraged...
"I blame the long ballots with those 6 long, confusing State Questions and also the 6 long County Questions. The Questions are impossible to understand without a translation by someone who has read about them on-line or in the newspaper." ...
Wait, to be an iformed voter is to I dunno... read ahead? research? know what you're voting on before you get there? don't tell me no one else does that!
Hardly anyone else does that.
You thought Elections would have learned? No comment.
But why Genius? Why don't people do that? It never ceases to amaze me. Very sad.
They haven't figured it out yet. A fool could see with the intensity of this campaign, this election would be a record breaker. Now, we have to deal with the situation. Alvarez needs to pull people from other Departments now and put them on elections. People who have sense enough to know how to process the line. There are a lot of people who are doing nothing who work for the County who need to help with this crisis. If it is like this now, I pity the poor people who wait to vote on election day. I knew the whole thing would be a mess, so a voted absentee at my dining room table and I got everything I needed to understand the ballot questions.
To make the process go faster, have someone go down the line and ask people to get their voter's registration card and ID ready. Have a number of problem tables set-up for the people with issues like not having these. Hand out sample ballots soon as they get in line, so people can begin thinking about how they will vote, and when they get there, all they have to do is bubble in their selections from the sample.
I am tired of being the laughing stock of the country, the subject of jokes and the like. Alvarez wanted to be strong Mayor, well he needs to strongly take over this election process!
They keep appearing on TV saying everything is fine , the machines are up and running, and there is no problems.
In other words if voters are having to wait 3 hours to vote that's not their fault.
I agree that there are many county employees that are absolutely worthless. However there are only 20 precincts open during early voting, when there are actually over 700 on election day. Do the math.
If everyone was a little more prepared (voters and county employees) things would definitely run a whole lot smoother.
We can do the math, however it doesnt seem Elections can. Why only 20 precints? Why not more or more machines or more manpower whatever is needed to make voting not be such a hassle.
We go thru this every election and is like the first time they are at it, each time. They had been saying they had no worries that they were properly staffed and equipped.
You are right! I doesn't take a PHD to figure out the average number of minutes it takes to vote. Then estimate the number of people who will show up each day based on intensity of the campaign and number of people who voted the first day . . . and bingo, you have the number of machines and number of staffers needed each day of early voting. If there are not enough sites, open up some more!
I am not advising anyone to wait until election day. You have no degrees of freedom left on election day. Now you have 3 options (absentee, early voting, election day). On election day that is it. There could be machine malfunctions and problems, there could have been wholesale purging of voters from the voting rolls, problems with the location of one's polling place, all kinds of problems which can't be solved on election day, but could have been solved if you voted early enough.
In addition to insuring to some extent that your vote is there to be counted, early voting problems gives the lawyers and the election protection organizations a precursor to what they may be confronting on election day . . . and god forbid, in election aftermath.
You are right about voting early. Some of these precincts are very large with more than 3,500 voters in them. If 85% of them turn out on election day, thats 2,975 people at that one precinct. If there are mechanical problems with the machines, and the line stops for even 30 minutes, they will never catch up for the rest of the day and the night. And you are stuck!
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