I’ve been standing in the voting line for the 2016 presidential elections for over 90 minutes. I think I’m still over 30 minutes away from the front of the line.
Of course I’m not eligible to vote, but you want to support your friends who are. And for me, now, I’m insanely curious to understand how a process that seems on paper to be so simple, can be made so time-consuming for so many people. In a nation that values productivity and efficiency, this is anything but.
I should be using Twitter for this but I don’t have an account. So I’ll post updates here as we move forward with the speed of a glacier.
1 hr 42 mins: You strike up conversations with those around you: the guy in front got to two world series games, both of which the Cubs lost. (I thanked him for not going to the final game.) The little girl behind had dirty knees from playing with her 7 year old sister who named her baby sister.
1 hr 53 mins: The toilets of the establishment are decorated with tiles in an institutional mint green colour. And I’ve just seen the longest plunger in the world!
2 hrs 10 mins: We’ve made it to the antechamber where you’re handed a form on which you have to write your name and address. There are 41 people in the room: 24 women, 6 people wearing baseball hats (2 backwards ), and one guy dressed head to waist in official Cubs gear, and from waist to toe in grey pyjama pants and tie dye crocs; I find myself wishing I’d had the same foresight to have dressed for comfort… I have never wanted Crocs until just now.
2 hrs 27 mins: I’ve been asked to leave, since I’m not voting. But my determination paid off and I discovered that there are two more lines inside the main theatre. The first is for your ballot. The second is to vote. I’ll need to get further intel from one of the insiders. For now I’m sat on a bench at a ball park where I’m about to read the weekend Guardian.
2 hrs 48 mins: The Cubs supporter who had been in front of me in the queue has just left. He took over 3 hours to cast his vote. That doesn’t include the time it took him to get to and from tyne polling station. At least it was a nice day.
2 hrs 56 mins: A HA! We get to the root of the problem! And it’s the same problem we have in the UK with our post office service. I remember wanting to buy some stamps, but I was in the same queue as people who want to open a bank account, get home insurance, renew road tax… In this case, there were over 15 pages of senators , judges (both state and local), questions on your views for gun control and school funding… even after you’re done with queuing, you’re at one of only eight to ten the machine for several minutes, and even longer if you’re going to triple check your votes to make sure you didn’t make a mistake.
I’m not sure how those machines work. They look like mechanisms to manipulate paper without using physical rather than something that feeds directly through to a database.
But an intersting experience in all. At least it was a nice day. Now I need a beer, and a burger, and maybe some beans.
