Election Day!

Wow, election day is finally here. I didn't think this day would ever come...

Have you voted yet? If not, go vote right now. I'll wait....

Ok, welcome back. I hope you didn't have to wait in line for too long. I've heard some crazy stories about long waiting times for early voting, so I'm guessing today will be no different. I just waited 45 minutes to vote in New York and New York isn't even a contested state. It was an interesting experience though.

I waited outside for about 20 minutes before getting to the front door of my polling place. As I walked in, a poll worker looked at my election card (They mailed out cards with your polling location, election district, congressional district, etc.) and told me to stand in a specific line. I walked over to the line and was confused. The sign hanging on the booth at the front of the line said "14th Election District" but my card said "49th Election District." My congressional district, however, was listed as 14. Hmm... I turned around and asked the elderly lady behind me which district she was in. She showed me her card and it said "40th Election District, 14th Congressional District." Ok, so we were both in the 14th Congressional District, but the sign clearly said Election District. So I turned to the woman in front of me and asked her. She was also assigned to the 14th Congressional, but a different Election District. I asked them to hold my place in line and I walked back to the entrance.

I asked the poll worker at the door, "Just to be clear, we're supposed to wait in lines based on Election District, right? Not Congressional District?"

"Yes, that's correct. Oh no, have I been sending people to the wrong lines again?"

No wonder people have been standing in such long lines, the poll workers are incompetent. I walked back over to my place in line and told the ladies that we were in the wrong line. The woman in front of me thanked me and switched lines. The old lady behind me said she was staying put. I tried to explain to her how the lines worked and pointed to the 40 on her card, but she wouldn't budge. I'm guessing that as an elderly black woman, she was an easy target for voter manipulation and/or suppression. Someone probably told her not to listen to anyone but trusted sources... so she ignored me. I did my best to announce to the whole room that they should be in line based on Election District and not any other number on their card. I saw one or two people switch lines, but more people acted like I wasn't there.

I went over to the line for the 49th Election District and waited there. I moved pretty quickly up to the table, signed the book, got my registered voter card, and moved over to the line for the voting booth. We were supposed to sign the book, get our cards, and go right into the booth, but only one of the two machines for my district was working. This created a bottleneck, so we had to form a second line to wait for the machine.

As I stood there, another poll worker was directing people to their district lines and kept sending the good people of the 49th Election District to the back of my line. Each time a new person would walk up, I would ask them if they've been up to the table to get their Registered Voter card yet. They would each look at me blankly until I held up the card. "Do you have one of these yet? No? Ok, then you need to wait in that line."

People were pretty skeptical of me then too, but my prop helped convince them. After struggling with a couple of people, the woman in front of me in line joined the good fight and helped me direct people to the correct place. After doing this four or five times, I went over to the poll worker and told her that she was directing people to the wrong line. She thanked me, but generally ignored me and kept doing what she was doing.

All this time, I kept an eye on the old lady from my first line and, as I was about to get to my voting booth, I saw them direct her to the correct line that I had tried to show her 20 minutes earlier. I felt kind of bad for her for having to wait twice, but her second line was far more efficient than mine, and she ended up voting before me.

I eventually got to the booth and cast my vote. From start to finish, it took only 45 minutes. It could have been a lot worse. But that being said, it could have been a lot better. I'm sorry that I didn't take the day off to volunteer as a poll worker. Apparently, unless you have a name tag on election day, no one listens to anything you tell them. Oh well, I tried...