In 2006-2012, our polling place was an actual neighbor’s house, about ten doors down our street. It was kinda amazing.
In 2014 and 2016, it’s been the local elementary school’s cafeteria. Still very nice and local, not quite as folksy and intimate.
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I was skeptical at first but being able to sit down with a nice hot cuppa and think it through with the voters pamphlet next to me for reading the full text and arguments for/against is really nice.
Yeah I do still miss going to the polling place but not that much.
and w00t my ballot has been received and verified…
I would edit out my name but it’s on my profile so whatever.
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When I lived in the Burbank area, it was somebody’s garage a couple blocks away. I would just walk over before leaving for work – I don’t think I ever encountered a line of more than 5 people.
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I never had to content with long lines in the UK, voting in small or large places.
Do you just not have enough of them, or does the actual voting take a long time because you have so many things to vote for? Or is it the proving who you are that takes a long time. In the UK you just bring in the polling card you were posted, and they line your name off on the sheet and give you the ballot.
Always wandered in after work, never had any queues to deal with.
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Those assholes? I don’t even want to see their cars in the parking lot when I get home, much less run into them at the polling place.
/sarcasm or not, I guess
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Yeah, that’s not a plus in my book.
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Well, the sixteen of them who aren’t faithless electoral college electors won’t, anyway…
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The problem is especially acute in Arizona, which, as Berman reports, “reduced the number of polling places by 70 percent from 2012 to 2016, from 200 to just 60—one polling place per 21,000 registered voters.” And in Ohio, GOP-instituted cuts to early voting in Cincinnati created a half-mile line of 4,000 people that snaked under an interstate and through a public park.
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The rules in India:
Maximum distance to reach polling station
Polling stations should be set up in such a manner that ordinarily, no voter
is required to travel more than 2 kilometres for casting his vote. In sparsely
populated hilly or forest area, this rule may have to be relaxed. In such cases, in
order that voters may not have to walk unduly long distances, polling stations
may be set up for a smaller number of voters than usual. Due consideration
should be given to the topography and ease of travel.
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I’m juat glad my poling place isn’t a friggin’ church, like it was that one cycle I was still at Uni in Iowa. 
[Edited for spelling. AUTOCORRECT!!!11]
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In the UK, apparently there were 40000 or so locations last year. Meant to be no more than 2500 voters per location.
Why isn’t the US election run and paid for federally, instead of as a series of local elections? Some States Rights thing?
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Essentially. Different states have different rules for choosing their representatives even at the Federal level. California, for example, has a nonpartisan Senate race. Is the Federal government going to take over that decision?
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My polling place is that, a church basketball gym.
The way they have it set up, you walk in and give your name so they can check the registration then state your party preference. They hand you a little card with an R or D printed on it to take to the next table and get a (party-specific?) ballot. The last time I voted, the poll worker had a stack or R cards, almost depleted, and a big untouched-looking stack of D cards. She was already picking up an R card for me when I said “democrat”. Happy to surprise her! Somebody has to keep it pluralistic.
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From the time I get back from work, I plan on subsisting largely on BBS and…actually I haven’t thought that far ahead. No joke here, I just realized mid-sentence that I never thought about how I’m going keep up with the election results.
Eh, BB’s enough. You people are the unicorn chasers to bad news and good news alike.
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I still can’t quite figure out how being forced to vote for one of the two major parties is legal.
Forunately, that’s only the case in Michigan for primaries, and you don’t have to be a party member to vote for whichever ballot you choose on those occasions. Regular elections can be a free-for-all if you don’t choose the straight-party bubble at the top of the ballot.
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I was a fervent Red Giant supporter but I’ve since decided to vote third-party:
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I don’t see that as insurmountable. Although it would make more sense to me to have the same ballot access rules everywhere anyway. I’d also elect the president by popular vote and do…something…to the senate to tip the balance away from empty states.
How about a levy on campaign donations (5%?) to pay for running the elections? Not as if there isn’t money to spend.
But that would probably be against the first amendment or something.
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Yeah, maybe that’s what it was, the primary.
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I still go get in line, for the same reasons. Scantron is decidedly not as fun, but we are the state of the Hanging Chad.
Our polling place switches back and forth depending on if the Methodists have run out of money and closed their church. I rather like that, as then we get to go to the MCC church, which is the LGBT community center. I have lollygagged in years past to watch the expressions of my more conservative neighbors as they read the poster telling everyone they’re in a Trans Safe Space.
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