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I read your story "Slip-sliding away in Columbus"
(http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/850).
I live in Tarrant County, TX, near Fort Worth. Our county used optical scan ballots. Most precincts had only 1 working machine, some may have had zero. However, since the ballots were all paper and could be tabulated at a central location if necessary, it didn't matter - all that mattered was how fast the election judge could check you in. Most places could easily handle a few hundred voters per hour, and lines of longer than 10 minutes were rare outside of peak voting times. Also, we have thousands of voting precincts for a county of less than 2 million people.
I heard horror stories of long lines around the country, but none as bad as yours. I can only hope that the people of the state of Ohio will say "ENOUGH" and demand shorter lines in the future, and ante up the money it takes to have more polling locations.
On an unrelated topic, I hope the planned recount (http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/851) finds and corrects for all the serious irregularities from election day AND that all states can learn now to prevent such irregularities in the future.
-David Richardson, Texas Democrat
I live in Tarrant County, TX, near Fort Worth. Our county used optical scan ballots. Most precincts had only 1 working machine, some may have had zero. However, since the ballots were all paper and could be tabulated at a central location if necessary, it didn't matter - all that mattered was how fast the election judge could check you in. Most places could easily handle a few hundred voters per hour, and lines of longer than 10 minutes were rare outside of peak voting times. Also, we have thousands of voting precincts for a county of less than 2 million people.
I heard horror stories of long lines around the country, but none as bad as yours. I can only hope that the people of the state of Ohio will say "ENOUGH" and demand shorter lines in the future, and ante up the money it takes to have more polling locations.
On an unrelated topic, I hope the planned recount (http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/851) finds and corrects for all the serious irregularities from election day AND that all states can learn now to prevent such irregularities in the future.
-David Richardson, Texas Democrat