Waiting to Vote in 2012

Abstract

Waiting in line to vote is one of the clichés of Election Day, whether the venue is Kenya or the United States. The length of time waiting to vote has regularly been an issue in the voting wars of the past decade. Long lines have given both the left and the right heartburn. For the left, long lines can be evidence that service-starved neighborhoods of predominantly poor and minority voters are seeing their votes suppressed through the inadequate provisioning of voting machines and poll workers on Election Day. For the right, the sight of long lines are just an excuse used by Democratic lawyers to get polling hours extended in urban areas, solely for the benefit of Democratic candidates.