Posted: November 10, 2008

Food table partly to blame for long lines at Missouri polling place

Many voters waited from 2 to 6 hours because there was not enough space at a St. Louis County polling place. Poll workers had set up a break area with a large table and chairs instead of using the limited space to set up all of the touch screen machines and paper ballot privacy stations that had been allocated to the precinct. Poll workers endure a very long day and surely need a place to have meals and take breaks. However, better management of the situation could have resulted in shorter waits for voters and lower incidence of voters leaving without voting (it is not known if any voters left this particular precinct without voting but that is the expectation when lines are very long). Late in the afternoon, the mayor of Velda City became aware that there were additional machines that could be used and offered other rooms in the building to accommodate them. They were set up at about 5:30 p.m. but waiting times remained long.