A quarrel about process broke out at my polling place.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

First of all, the longest line I have ever seen that snaked around the building. Aprox 1 hour wait outside in chill and rain.

Inside there are 3 tables to check in at and get the voting tabulator for the machine:

A-G, H-O and P-Z

There are eight voting machines total.

The poll people kept walking through the line and collecting people whose names started with P-Z because that check-in table was often completely empty. The guy in front of me got very irate - he said this practice was making the wait longer for all the other people waiting in line because ultimately we were all there to use the same eight machines and so what if the P-Z table was occassionally empty? The lady in front of him disagreed and said that the goal was to get as many people through in as short a time as possible and it was a waste if no one was checking in the P-Z's at an empty table.

So what do you think? I really didn't care either way and I could see both viewpoints.

[skooooo]

1. Location? location?? we don't know where you are!

[Gman]

2. For the sake of peace

they should have just proceeded as normal. If all the machines were in use all the time, they should have just let it go.

[AspenRose]

3. Sounds like you were at my polling place

But there wasn't a fight when I was there

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. It wasn't a fight, it was a quarrel or a disagreement. It didn't escalate.

The poll lady told the irate guy he could file a complaint if he liked, she would give him the form. I think he was upset because he obviously was trying to vote before going to work and in his view people from farther back in the line than him were getting to the actual voting machines earlier and unfairly and making his personal wait longer.

[leftyclimber]

4. The M-Z's had the short line here in Morgantown WV precinct 60.

Nobody seemed to mind (least of all me -- I'm in that group), but it was the same bunch of people that always shows up to vote right when the polls open. It will probably balance out later in the day. We also had a pretty short wait, though. I don't know how the line-jumping would have gone over had the wait been long and the weather yucky.

[seaglass]

6. They should split up the alphabet differently, have more letters

at the P-Z table and fewer at the other 2.

[drm604]

7. They did that to us here in the Philly suburbs.

A few of us got a little irate because a few people immediately behind us got to go first because they were earlier in the alphabet. But it worked out and it probably actually sped things up. They only alphabetized the line immediately before the sign in table.