For all of you who are "concerned" about long lines in FL on Tuesday: DON'T BE.

[ddeclue]

The lines are actually going to be shorter than in the past and much shorter than during early voting.

The reason that they will be shorter than in the past is because more people have already voted than ever before during early and absentee voting here in Florida. We only started early voting here in 2004 in Florida and it is catching on wildly (although I think we really need to adopt Oregon's vote by mail ONLY system). The volume of early and absentee ballots that is being taken out of the system before election day drives down the volume ON election day. That is good not only for Supervisor of Elections offices but ALSO for campaigns.

Yes the lines HAVE been long during EARLY voting but that is not as bad as everyone is acting like it is here on DU. This just means that the lines will be shorter on the actual election day.

There is also a huge difference between how EV is run and how election day is run in Florida. EV in each county is conducted at a very small number of locations. In Orlando (Orange County) that is about 10 EV locations. In Broward County (Fort Lauderdale) that is at about 20 location.

On ELECTION day however there will be 260 polling places open - one for each county precinct so there will be a much larger number of machines and election workers to spread the voter load out across.

Polls are open from 7AM to 7PM on Tuesday.

Early voting ended Saturday.

If you STILL have not returned your ABSENTEE BALLOT in FLORIDA - DON'T MAIL IT NOW - WALK IT INTO YOUR POLLING PLACE AND VOTE IN PERSON. Absentee ballots MUST be RECEIVED by 7PM on election day, not merely mailed.

Thanks,

Doug D.
Writing this from Cambridge England but based out of Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale, FL

[rcrush]

1. Either way no one is gonna just walk away

If they are going to vote they are going to do it no matter what. Anyone discouraged enough by long lines had no idea who they were going to vote for anyway.

[AtomicKitten]

3. I agree, and those willing to wait as long as it takes are the true patriots in my book.

:patriot:

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ddeclue]

7. There was NO voting in Florida this morning so I don't know what you are talking about.

Early voting ended on Saturday and I've explained why THOSE lines WERE long and why Tuesdays will NOT be.

Doug D.

[Malikshah]

11. In Broward it ended on Sunday--

Maybe the poster was referring to reading about 8 hour waits over the weekend.

For me and my partner, we got there at 9:15 on Sat a.m. before the polls opened and were out around noon. Basically, a 2 hour wait from when the polls opened. Nothing major as the line continued to move; no breakdown of the printers :)

The main glitch that occurred was when voters had their cell phones on--which interfered w/ the computers, etc.

Make sure your phones are off (not just the ringer) at least in Broward Co, FL

[ddeclue]

13. Cell phones interfered with the computers?

That doesn't seem like a reasonable excuse to me and I work as an engineer for a cell phone company...

:shrug:

[Malikshah]

14. That's what the poll worker said -- not sure if folks' PDAs, Blackberries, IPhones

were causing problems or not-- no skin of our teeth to turn the devices off for the time we were in there.

Big old sign outside of the room with a Turn Cell Phones off warning.

[flpoljunkie]

16. There will be over 7,000 precincts open for voting tomorrow across the state of Florida.

There were only 267 early voting locations across the entire state.

[Malikshah]

2. The other factor is that when you early voted, they had to take the time to print out a ballot to

match each voter's precinct.

In my experience in Broward, this is what took up the time. Four pages, double sided for me.

I would imagine that tomorrow- you go to your precinct, and they'll have these things ready to go... Could be wrong though. I'd hope that that part of the process would be cut

Best to all tomorrow!!!

[ddeclue]

10. This is ALSO a mitigating factor.

The ballots will be pre-printed on Tuesday because they CAN be. This will also save time.

The biggest bottle neck for me was when people were having problems entering their precinct # on the tabulators during early voting.

I would assume that the tabulators can be set to single precinct mode for election day to eliminate this step also. (i.e. everybody voting at a particular polling place will be voting from the same precinct so why do you need to enter the precinct number in this scenario?)

Doug D.

[AtomicKitten]

5. Thanks for the info. Fingers crossed.

[ocean girl]

6. Thanks for the reassurance!

I live in Highland Beach (Palm Beach County) and I haven't voted yet. I will vote tomorrow in my little town's Catholic (and only) church. Usually, the retirees who work at this polling location are diligent and very cheerful and relaxed. It's always been a fun process and I hope it will be the same tomorrow.

Either way, I'm casting my vote for Obama - no matter how long it takes!

[Mojorabbit]

8. I am hoping that is true

for those of my family who have not early voted but I believe we have had a big increase in registrations which might negate the early voters as far as number of people showing up to vote on tues and I expect the lines to be fairly long.

[ddeclue]

12. "Long" is a relative term...

They won't be 8 hours long tomorrow.

Might you have to wait 30 minutes to 1 hour? Quite possibly.

Best bet: Go to vote at 630AM and be the first one in line at 7AM. Lines will be longest at the end of the day.

Don't worry though. As long as you are in line by 7PM you will be able to vote. It is better to vote earlier though because that way if you go at 8AM and they have some sort of problem with your registration, you still have a few hours to fix it. It is much harder to do anything at 630PM.

Thanks,

Doug D.

[tosh]

9. Not worried, never was.

My polling place has always been great. Convenient, short wait, happy BLUE faces.;)

[Eric J in MN]

15. Florida only has 260 polling places for the whole state?

Minnesota has 4,000.

[ddeclue]

18. No that's just one county in Florida - Orange County.

According to another poster we have over 7,000 polling places in FL on Tuesday.

[Eric J in MN]

23. Minnesota still has more polling places per person.

7,000 polling places in FL versus 4,000 polling places in MN.

Almost 19 million people in FL versus about 5 million people in MN.

Florida has about 4x the population, but less than 2x the number of polling places.

[ddeclue]

19. No that's just one county in Florida - Orange County.

According to another poster we have over 7,000 polling places in FL on Tuesday.

[progressivebydesign]

17. Very important message you have for ANY state! Don't let the tales of long early voting lines deter.

I hope that people realize that the huge lines for early voting are because 1) we have more people voting 2) most of the early voting was consolidated into central locations, instead of smaller precincts. 3) it should take the pressure off of the polling places tomorrow.

The areas of concern (yeah, that "c-word") are in the same precincts that were slammed in 2004, in Ohio. People had to wait many hours to vote, late into the night, because they didn't have enough equipment in the most populated precincts.

[ddeclue]

21. I'm not from Ohio so I can't speak authoritatively but at least the OH SOS is a Dem this time

so I don't expect there will be long lines if it is within her power to prevent it.

Doug D.

[WA98070]

20. I live in a Vote By Mail county and don't like it. It's too "Unofficial." My daughter learned the...

basics of citizenship by being carried into the voting booth. How do you do that today?

I do like the paper trail involved in absentee voting though.

[ddeclue]

22. If you want to make it "official" send it by certified mail just like your taxes.

There are HUGE advantages to vote by mail:

1) People are much more likely to vote.
2) It costs less to run the election for the government.
3) It costs less and is easier to run the campaigns.
4) It is more environmentally friendly.
5) It eliminates artificial logistical problems like having to have 260 physical polling places manned with staffers and machines.

Doug D.