Canton, Ohio - I voted at 6:30 a.m. this morning. I took my mom who is 85 and the whole thing took about 30 minutes for us together.
It looked organized, but I can see where it will get very hectic later:
• They have people leaving and entering the voting area through the same doorway (a narrow, short foyer area with a step down to the grade school gymnasium where tables were set up for different precincts). A ramp WAS to the right for disabled, though no sign outside indicated where it was…you just had to sort of find it on your own. .
• No overhead signs designating respective precincts so people entering the crowded gymnasium can see above the crowd to find their proper table.
• None of the polling staff went out into the exterior of the building or along the line outside to determine that voters knew their precinct. So, anyone entering the voting area proper, had to sort of mill around with everyone else in the crowd till they found their table.
• After voting, we returned to the table where we got our computer ‘card’ in order to return it to the workers there. We had to break across the line of people entering to GET their cards in order to return our card to the table.
Too bad, this was a brand new grade school, with ample space if workers had capitalized on it properly.
I guess it could have been worse.
I was in my polling place this morning, and there are four precincts. Now, I know that I vote in the one that is set up just left of the door, because that is the booth I have been voting in since 1992. But there are no signs to tell the voters which table they have to go to. A new voter would have to wait in a line and then be told to go wait in another line to vote.
At 6:00 AM, this would not have been a problem. But, by all indications, those lines are getting pretty long right about now.