Why such long line ups at the polls?

[yvr girl]

We traditionally get higher turn out in Canada and I don't think that I've ever had to wait longer than 10 minutes to vote. And I usually vote during the busiest time of the day, after work.

I know that turn out is larger this year, but 4 and 5 hour waits are ridiculous. How many polling stations do you have?

[bowens43]

1. In early voting , not all polling places are open.

At least that's how it is here in North Carolina.

[deadparrot]

2. Right now, I think, they're limited.

Because this is early voting, I don't think they're opening every polling station. More locations open tomorrow.

[jean]

3. there was a report this week that we have a severe shortage of poll

workers, to the tune of about 500,000. So there aren't enought people working at the polls plus we're having a huge turnout. No mystery now why the lines are so long.

[clydefrand]

More DEMS out to vote for Kerry!

[Rjnerd]

4. During early voting

They have a very limited number of polling stations open. (as few as one per county). On actual election day, there will be a lot more open. There may still be delays, at least one report had the touch screens only processing 6 voters per hour.

[yvr girl]

7. 6 per hour, that's craziness

I did a calculation based on Vancouver's last municipal referendum (low turn out 23%). There were 51 polling stations available. Two years ago, there were 293,263 registered voters in the city. That makes one station for every 5750 registered voters.

I voted at the same place where I voted for our last federal election. Do you have a polling station per voter ratio that comes close to that?

[mikehiggins]

5. Not enough. No one is to blame, really.

The pollsite people are going by past experience. Nothing has prepared them for all the folks suddenly showing up to cast votes.

Since most of those voters are Kerry votes, I have no problem with that.

[pdmike]

6. Not enough poll workers coupled with unusually large number of voters

this election.