Me: Ireland - Approximately 2 minutes until poll in hand is the longest.
I’ve been seeing long lines for the US elections even for early voting. Seems completely unnecessary.
20 seconds, Germany. Waiting while they checked if my name was on the list.
About 15 minutes, this morning in Wilmington, NC. In previous elections here, I’ve walked in and voted immediately, with no line
I’m gonna grasp at that being positive. My favourite band at a ripe old age, Sylvan Esso, are from NC.
About an hour. New Zealand. Things weren’t well-organised that day.
I think there were like two couples and another person entering the building just ahead of me, so I had to wait 10 seconds until it was my turn to drop my envelope in the urn. This was in Switzerland, in a suburb of Zürich.
But more often I just walk in up to the box, say hello to the people organising and drop it in directly. I’ve never encountered a queue yet.
Australia (Sydney). A few years ago I went and there was a queue going outside the door and volunteers were telling people that it would take 30-45 minutes but to please stay in line. They were also handing out Tim Tams for people in line. I decided to try another polling station instead, which was 10-15 minutes walk away. There was no queue at all there so I was out within a couple minutes. So that one took the longest even though most of it was walking to another location. Wish there was a way to tell the people in that queue that other locations were empty.
Did you get your sausage?
I’ve actually never gotten sausage after voting 😬
Shambles. :)
7 hours. People were showing up with pizza and sandwiches for everyone in line. It really destroyed my faith in my local government but built my sense of community.
I think you hold the record so far!
Edit: also fair play to you for sticking it out.
Maybe 30 to 45 minutes in Merritt Island, Florida, back in 2004.
It was my first time voting, and I went with my parents after they were home from work, so it’s likely that that was the longest anyone there waited.
I’ve lived all over central Florida since, and have never had to wait at all, but that’s mostly because I do Early Voting or even Vote By Mail now.
The longest for me was about 30 seconds. Coincidentally about as much as sex.
What a weird thing to say
3 hour wait to vote for Obama. Since then it’s been 20-30 minutes every time.
5 mins, new Zealand. The voting places are super empty because they open for multiple days.
Houston, Texas. 4.5 hours
The lines are intentional to discourage you from voting
North Houston Suburbs, no more than 20 minutes.
ditto when i moved to austin.
anecdotally: the length of the lines correlate with the wealth of the voting district. i think that texas is like arizona & georgia in that when the lines are long; they’re REALLY long compared to the long lines i experienced in california, new york, & illinois; but the short line places always seemed to be much emptier on election day for some reason.
For sure, my area isn’t necessarily more wealthy, but it is definitely more republican. Coincidence?
GOOD GOD!!!
Fwiw it was less than 10 mins in the affluent neighborhoods I lived near San Francisco, California and New York and 1.5 hours in the poor neighborhoods in those same cities
That’s an interesting one. I live in a small town (~10K). It’s a fairly middle-class suburb of Dublin and the only place I’ve ever voted (but many times). Makes me curious if it’s different in other neighbourhoods.
i’ve lived in 11 cities in this country over the decades chasing work to maintain my health insurance and my experienced seemed normal to my neighbors who had lived there most of their lives as well.
most of those cities had a large proportion of transplants like me and their experiences mirrored mine.
I once waited half an hour for voting, because I foolishly decided to vote just when Sunday mass was over (we vote on Sundays, and my polling station was right across the church). Never made that mistake again, waiting time is usually five to ten minutes.
Location: Germany
My first presidential election was in 1980. I waited almost six hours to vote for Jimmy Carter in Iowa City, Iowa, USA (a medium-sized college town).
It was surprisingly festive. There were people walking the line handing out water and snacks. There were several musicians performing at various points along the line.
5 minutes. I don’t live in a swing state and go during work hours, so that might effect it.
I haven’t ever needed to wait. I go in, hand them my ID, they cross my name off the list, hand me the ballot, I go to the booth and write a number, dude stamps it, I drop it to the box and I’m out. Takes about 3 minutes from when I step out of my car untill I’m back in again.
