Why the long lines for early voting? Why can't they add more voting booths?

[Hamlette]

I live in a state with early voting. There are only a few places where you can vote early.

On Tuesday there will be a zillion more voting places. Each one of them will have several voting booths.

Why don't they add some of those voting booths to the places where there is early voting? Is it an issue of staffing? I know that they hire lots of people through temporary help companies to do this (I work at the unemployment office and we get their claims after the election), maybe they could add a few more.

Or is there something I'm missing.

[Ken Burch]

1. They probably want to force as many people as possible to wait for Election Day

or not to get to vote at all.

(especially CERTAIN GROUPS of people.)

[msongs]

2. "they" = democrats INC has done little to noting about this stuff & repubs nothing o course nt

[blm]

3. It's another way they suppress the vote in Dem areas. GOP neighborhoods rarely have long waits.

.

[Hamlette]

5. not to belabor the point but how/why is that true in counties where the dems are in control?

there is still a part of me that wants to blame "the other" for our loses the last 8 years (stolen elections, dirty elections etc.) but I think the lesson we may learn this year is the dems have been unable to articulate what we stand for before. Gore and Kerry were, for whatever reason, not good at telling ppl why they should vote for us.

But on this point, I live in a red state but a very blue county. The election here is run by the county. The lines are longer this time (over 2004) even though we added and promoted vote by mail this time. The reason is there are far fewer places to "early vote" and I suspect far fewer booths at those places than are needed. Since the dems are in control here, I can't see how we can blame it on voter suppression moves by the GOP. (Which was why Dean's 50 state thingie was so important. It got in ppl down ballot in local races where they could influence how the voting went.)

I guess the answer is staffing. In my state we are facing huge budget cuts at the state level. I'm sure that transfers down to the county level. Seems we should get our counties to establish a "rainy day" election fund so in years when the vote is unusually large they can hire more workers to staff more booths.

[blm]

6. After Katrina corpmedia was having a more difficult time protecting Bush and the GOP. Not that

they didn't WANT to but that story and the pictures made it clear Bush and the GOPs were incompetent and, in some respects, uncaring and even evil.

You can't even compare the dug in protection Bush was given in 2000 and 2004 by a corporate media who gave scant airtime to Gore and especially post 9-11 2004 when Kerry was given less airtime the entire year than Palin has recived the last few months. You can't compare 2000 and 2004 newsmedia suppression of anyone antiBush with the much more abundant access Obama has been given the past year.

Besides, Obama doesn't have the biggest names in the Dem party siding with Bush anymore the way they did in 2003 and 2004. Imagine if Clinton had a book tour in June and July of this past year where every interview he did he sided WITH Bush and McCain on war and foreign policy and against Obama's criticisms of Bush and McCain.

Many here forget that even Joe Biden said publicly then that he supported Bush on his Iraq decision and Kerry was wrong to vote against the 87 billion for war support.

With that kind of Dem support, no wonder Kerry had no team to PUSH and further his position and his attacks on Bush.

2008 is a completely different political climate - and Obama HAS a strong team of surrogates who uphold his positions publicly instead of undermining them.

[Hamlette]

7. I know why so many ppl are voting, I was just asking why the counties/states

can't provide more voting booths/machines so they would not have to wait so long.

I don't see that as some corporate media conspiracy but your mileage may vary

[Kukesa]

11. In Ohio, on election day, there are a set number of voting booths

per person for voters in that precinct.

Maybe there was no way to predict the number of early voters?

Just my guess.

[Mojorabbit]

4. My husband went to vote today

in Orlando and the line was huge. He decided to wait till election day. I told him I doubt the lines will be any shorter then.

[Hamlette]

8. yeah, its 2 hours in UTAH.....UTAH. Who cares how/who we vote for?

Bush got 71% of the vote in Utah in 2004.

And McCain is ahead by 23 points here (down from 38 in September but still, come on, who the hell is voting here? and why don't they add some more damn machines so the lines are not so long!)

[NoPasaran]

9. My experience has always been

It's not the number of voting booths that slows things down, it's the sign-in process for voters that results in long lines.

[EffieBlack]

10. It's not just the number of booths

It's also a question of qualified, experienced staff - right now, most counties just don't have the financial resources to do all of this.