Only about 45 minutes of waiting time. I was surprised it didn't take any more than that. I got to my polling site about 7:40 a.m. and was out about 8:25 a.m.

However, one young man in front of me had to leave as he could not wait any longer.

We left our house at 7:00 this morning and walked the 2 blocks to our precinct polling place. We were standing in a line that was maybe 20 feet long when they announced that the people who's name starts with L-Z form a line here. All the sudden we were in a 3 person line! We voted, went home, and I remembered to look at the clock after we had been home a few minutes, and that was at 7:25. The people in my area that voted early were standing in line for hours. I didn't get my sticker, though, for my free cup of coffee, but the precinct judge said we could show the Starbucks people the stamp on our registration card.

Sally

If that young man was voting in Canada he would have had time to vote. In Canada an employer must allow an employee three consecutive hours to vote, with pay. So if the polls close at 7:00 PM and you work until 6:00, your employer would have to let you leave at 4:00 or give you three consecutive hours earlier in the day to vote.

Ann

We had an hour and 30 minute wait. My daughters last name is different than mine. She got there 30 minutes after we did and she left before us...our line had many problems.

I voted by absentee ballot on Saturday. I knew I'd have a tough time getting to the polls today and didn't want to take a chance.

Nancy, here in NC we took advantage of early voting. I wasn't sure I'd be here today, so we voted last Tuesday. Not a long wait, but about 15 minutes and that was a week early. 40% of voters in NC voted early, that is HUGE!!!! I have been a bit of a political junky for the last 6 months or so! I am also praying for a landslide! Gina

I haven't been yet. Since I have today off, Ifigured I would wait until after "rush hour". LOL

Don't think we'll see any landslides, tho. It's a pretty tight race.

Linda

Well I live in a residential area and in my precinct I don't believe there are more than perhaps 1000 voters....most likely fewer.
I don't expect it will take me more than 10 minutes at most to vote.
Linda C

I'm stunned reading your accounts of long waits! Our polling places are also residential--well in our case many of the residences have been combined at the large local Presbyterian church. Nevertheless I've never waited more than 5 minutes, except to park!
Earlier this year we registered for absentee ballots. I didn't seriously review the ridiculous amount of other ballot measures until Friday night and then they were too late to mail, so we'll be dropping them off at the polling place this morning.
I know that the turnout will be huge, especially since we have Prop 8 on our ballots, which is a civil rights issue.

Ellen, we have been hearing a lot about Prop 8 here.

Ann, Canada gets it right so often!

Schools are closed today and Dh usually gets the day off but he is laid off anyway (smiling through clenched teeth). lol

We are in a residential commuter town with our polling place right by the train station. Heard it was packed at 6:00 am and my friend went at 10:00 am and waited 1/2 hour. I have never waited more than 5 minutes. I am going around noon with the whole family - we are going to walk - it is a nice day and only about a mile away and then go for a slice. It is important to me to teach my kids how special our right to vote is and how lucky we are!

Anyway, I'm blabbing! LOL It is thrilling to see the large turnouts. I hope everyone can vote that wants to vote. I can't wait to cast mine! I feel very proud this election. I'll report back the wait

25 minutes max, which included the car ride to and from. No line at all. 8:15 am.

One hour in line. Worth every minute.

Our place opened at 7:00 A.M., and I was there by 7:30 with my 12 year old in tow. He is fascinated with this year's election and really wanted to see what it was all about. We waited about 1/2 hour, then once we got inside the church to vote, the whole process went quickly. All in all, a fine experience and my son was so excited that they gave him an "I VOTED" sticker. He is no doubt showing it off at school as we speak:-) I sure hope we don't have any election scandals in Florida this time around.
DONNA

I voted yesterday and waited in line for that. the line there was way longer then the one earlier in the fall that I stood in for my local election and one ballot issue to allow money to be spent on repairs. A friend went at 6:45 AM here for the polls to open at 7. There were 40 people in front of her in line and by the time the pools opened at least 50 behind her.

Glad I voted yesterday!! I have time alone with my 6 year old this evening and i left it up to him if I would vote early. He chose to make jam with me tonight and sent me to vote yesterday. I was relieved to have cast my ballot.

I am so nervous about the outcome here. many more comments like Ann T's and I will just take advantage of DH's citizenship and move. LOL

-Robin

Damn I can't figure out where my poll is.........but I sure do want to vote! LOL

I went at 8:40 and had about five people in front of me. Last night I wrote out who I intended to vote for and the answer (yes or no)to the Question (in PA it was something to do with infrastructure). Of course, I left my list at home and had to hope I remembered it right. I knew my presidential choice by heart!

So after pushing the buttons for my votes I took about 30 seconds to find the "cast your vote" button, which was all the way down in the left hand corner. I bet people wondered what I was doing in there.

Yes, I think people should have a couple of paid hours to vote.It only seems fair.

Chase, your polling place is somewhere south of the border.

I vote at the local fire house. I feel so American and patriotic when I vote. I'm anxious to hear the results.

I passed our polling place and the parking was spilled out onto the street 1/2 mile in each direction. I am glad that I did early voting.

Most in our area are working so I would imaging that this evening will be even more crowded.

My son and his friend drove home from college to vote. DS and I waited about 45 minutes-yea! we had time to talk. His friend went to a different place and waited an hour longer because they had a problem with the machines. Sorry for him, but DS came home and ate lunch with me :) And he missed a psychology class, much to his delight.

I live in the boonies, which made the whole voting process take literally under five minutes from the time I pulled up to the polling place to the time I was walking out the door... It almost made it a little anticlimactic -- a little bit of a wait might have built some sense of excitement and more of the sense that I was doing an important civic duty...

No wait at all. One of the men working at my polling place had on boxer shorts. Even with no wait there was confusion. Some of these people really need to pass the torch sorry to say. They canÂt hear each other or see! We were the only voters there and they didn't have any more "numbers" and they had to ask 3 different people. Doesn't seem very organized and it does make me nervous. We have the old time lever booths with the curtains. I like those! What does everybody else have?
I'll be nauseous the rest of the day!

We voted by mail several weeks ago. Once, years ago, we went to the wrong place, so I can understand Chase's quandary!

We also had exceptionally heavy early voting and mail in voting here, some where between 61 and 70° of ballots were cast before today (the figure was not consistent from one channel to another).

Ann, Colorado law also provides for paid time to vote if the polls are not open for three hours either before or aften an employees work day.

Lee

Oh Maggie I so miss those voting machines!! When I was a child growing up in New York City that was the type of voting machine they had. My parents let my brother or I go in with them and pull the lever to close the curtain, with a satisfying clunk, push down the lever for each choice, and then pull the lever to open the curtain. That type of voting machine really made me feel the pomp and circumstance of the voting process. The machines just seemed so powerful and official.

Here in Vermont there are paper ballots with bubble tests. You painstakingly fill in each bubble and then feed them into a machine. Boring!!

-Robin

Lee, Chase is Canadian, she would vote here if she could figure out a polling place that would let her. I for one would love it if both Ann T and Chase could vote here. I am pretty sure they would vote the way I did ;-)

Well I'm getting ready to head to town..we'll see how many corners are covered with picketers..oh I mean supporters. LOL

I voted via mail over a week ago.

I feel comfortable about the Presidental choice..it's our local Govenor race that concerns me...Our current Gov, barely won over the guy that's re running..I was not unhappy with the job she did..so she has my vote again.

45 min., and like Diana said, worth every minute! Not longer than what I expected. One guy ahead of me showed up at the wrong polling place. He had waited for about an 40 minutes in the wrong line, but then said he couldn't go to the other polling place because he was already late for work. Even though the polling place was only a couple of blocks away. I felt bad for him but it was kind of his reponsibility to find out the correct place. I got calls and calls this past week telling me to vote, and where to vote. Just messages on my machine, since I'm never home. Bill Clinton and Gov. Rendell both called me, I'm a popular gal! I wanted to scream "Enough already!" but I am so busy I didn't even have time to worry about it, just erased the messages. My precinct is three blocks from my house and I vote there all the time so it was nothing new for me. I just really think it is so important that everyone vote, no matter what their political preferences. I really hope more districts in the US get their acts together when it comes to having effective voting procedures. They need to get with the times--we can send a man to the moon so this should be possible. I guess they were lulled into complacency with fewer voters and less close races in the past. Well, like Maggie says, I hope in the future the US gets its act together about voting. It is so incredibly important and something not to be flaking around with. I would say there is political motivation in discouraging voters, but I don't know if that is the case in most places, some yes, but that has always been the case. However, I have had such irritating experiences just trying to accomplish the non-political act of get the address changed on my driver's license and bank statements, that I think a lot of it has to do with a certain attitude towards serving others. I think there is a distinct lack of a "service orientation" in government and other large buracracies in general. Accountability starts at the voting booth!! :) I also try to vote with my dollars and not continue to frequent rude and unhelpful vendors when I can.

I don't know Robin! Bubbles sound kind of fun:) Your son had the right idea. Have fun jamming.

Pam, you crack me up.

Ten minutes for me to vote, at 10:00 AM, and I passed the time nicely with a neighbor in front and a neighbor in back.

I think they should change to a weekend day, and not a working weekeday, for voting. And if your work schedule doesn't allow you to get to the polls, there is always mail in or absentee ballots. Sorry, I dont see the need to burden small businesses with yet another 'tax'. Thats what my DH does (but he invariably forgets to mail it! So I end up turning it in for him, takes two seconds, no waiting - another way around the lines).

I agree that the poll workers need to be turned over...I wrote in my prez candidate and that resulted in two people handling it, visible, to show the poor senior citizen volunteer how to process my ballot! LOL.

I voted last week during early and there was no one in line. Our county uses "voting centers" instead of precincts, so we may vote anywhere in the county and not at an assigned precinct. The voting centers are set up at places like hotels, malls, churches, police stations, the University, and many other locations. It makes it very convenient because people can vote close to home, work, or while out running errands. You can also just look for the place with short lines. I liked the early voting, though, because my son was at an all day chess tournament last week and the room next to the tournament happened to be a voting center. Since we had to waste the whole day just sitting around anyway, most of the hundred or so parents that were there used it to research all of the ballot issues (we had a long ballot) and then vote.

30-40 minutes at 10:30 am. Much longer than usual but not too bad!

Jessy, I wish I had done that -- written in the name of the wo.., er I mean person I really wanted.

PA is a swing state, so I felt like my vote really made a difference this time.

I'd like to vote at the mall.

The college where I work is a polling place. The student clubs are cleaning up financially by having food sales in the lobby--popcorn, cookies and red white and blue cupcakes. It's very festive here and no long lines--as it should be!

I vote at my local small town city hall. There were two people in front of me, two people behind me and I was number 379 at 2 p.m. Last election I was number 155 at 7 p.m. so there's a huge turnout for my tiny precinct.

We don't have machines or curtains, just a manila folder with out ballots, we "connect" the arrows to vote for our candidates and then feed the ballots into the machine, which sometimes also "eats" the folder, LOL.

My personal theory this year is that if you are an incumbent, I didn't vote for you, you had four years to get it right and things are no better so you can get right out of there. Unfortunately, it didn't work for the presidential candidates.....

It took me about 5 extra minutes because my next door neighbor was working the polling booths and she bought a side of beef from me so we had to discuss payment. Hey, something good came from politics!

Annie

One minute - at 10:30 a.m. No one in front of me, no one behind me. Took me longer to park and walk to the car than to vote.

I was happy to also vote for a new mayor for our town - the last one is a crook and a former business owner in our town as well and also a liar, let me see what else would you need to know about him, okay, that about covers it.

We are having some issues in our area. The nudists are in an uproar demanding nudist polling place.

In case you weren't aware--Tampa Bay region of Florida is the nudist resort capital of the United States.

Chase, come to Chicago, we will let you vote here :). This is the day the dead have a voice.....

I walked in at 7:35 and was out the door by 7:40 but they told me that at 6 the line was long.

Annie, we have the same ballot here, the size of a bed sheet and too big for the little polling tables after the punch cards we have had for years.

The next 4 to 8 years could be very interesting.

Cathy, naked voting? Oy!

Ten minutes for me. I live in a burb north of Tulsa. The average for people in the office was 20 minutes give or take.

Like Annie, we connect a line with a felt tip pen and feed it into a machine.

LOL Cathy!

David, I wish we had your way of voting. Ours was with the spinning wheel and I work with all kinds of computerized stuff and it took me a minute to get with the program. I was in and out in about ten minutes. It should be interesting no matter who wins, I'm afraid of both of them but no matter the outcome we are still Americans and we like to cook and eat.

Got there, did it. It took me less than 15 minutes from parking the car to "un-parking" the car! It would have been more like 10 minutes, but I had my 3-year old grand-niece with me and, of course we had to let her "vote", too.

They had a corner for kids to vote. As a preschooler, her choices were either a pencil or crayons. She voted for crayons. (I wish our choices were that straight-forward and easy to figure out! LOL)

Linda

For those of you on the west coast, is it discouraging to be hearing the predictions of a likely winner on television when your polls are just closing?

They called Pennsylvania for Obama about three minutes after the polls closed at 8 pm.

"My personal theory this year is that if you are an incumbent, I didn't vote for you, you had four years to get it right and things are no better so you can get right out of there. Unfortunately, it didn't work for the presidential candidates....." Hey Hey Annie!

Me too!

I'm kind of upset that I've never had the opportunity to go to a poll and vote. Being in Oregon, the only state with all mail in ballots, I missed out on the whole experience and getting an "I voted" sticker this year. I've always had a mail in ballot, but I remember going with my parents to the polling places when I was a kid.

Bri

For those of you on the west coast, is it discouraging to be hearing the predictions of a likely winner on television when your polls are just closing?

Nope, I knew what the results would be back in August - Obama.

I always think of the people in third world countries who line up for days and risk being shot in order to vote. Makes our voting seem tame by comparison.
Australian voting (which is compulsory) is complicated and few people understand it. It's preferential, so you have to number ALL the candidates in the order you prefer them. Sometimes there are well over 100 candidates. If you miss one, mess up the numbering, double up on a number, whatever, your vote is deemed "informal" and is not counted. So a couple of prime ministers ago the then PM decided that most of the informal votes WOULD have been in favour of his party if his supporters could count right so he made an easier way whereby each party would decide the best order of numbers to support their cause, and if you agreed with their choice you just had to put a "1" against that party. Of course, many of us who can count prefer to make up our OWN minds as to our preferences. It's hard after a point, though, because after the major parties you generally have NO IDEA what the minor candidates are all about, so how can you say you prefer Candidate X to Candidate Z? You should be able to stop numbering when you run out of candidates you actually prefer.
Hearty congratulations to Mr Obama.

Good point, Colleen. However, our American forefathers dodged a lot of bullets to secure a free government and the right to vote for us. Took the ladies and people of color a bit longer to get here, but look where we are today!

Perhaps one day people in third world countries will have the same experience. Your Aussie system sounds daunting!

I am one happy camper this morning and have such great hopes for President-elect Obama.

My youngest son and I didn't have to stand in a long line. There was only 3 people in front of us and as they moved out we were called up. Took maybe two minutes before we were called. Took longer to blacken the circle on the ballot for our choices than it took to stand in line.

I voted last week about 10 AM. (NV allows early voting now.) There were quite a few people voting, but I was in and out in about ten minutes. I noticed a LOT of people had filled out their sample ballots, and I think that sped things along.

Bri, my girls always went with me to the voting booth, and Ashley had to call me when she left the polls to excitedly tell me she had voted and to ask me about proposals (we had two, both passed, one was a stem cell research bill and one was for medicinal marjuana!). This was her first election and I told her that she was supposed to be prepared BEFORE she voted, LOL.

Annie