Hey, I'm up. I went to bed at 11pm and rolled over about 30 minutes ago with a cough that won't permit me to return to slumber. Still coughing later? Pull out the drugs!!! We'll see.
So I wanted to talk a little about the poll lines. Early voting has seen wait times of up to 6 hours during this election. Many are getting frustrated and leaving. NO!!! Your vote matters!!! Go back! But can you blame some of them? This bothers me some. I don't think it is fair to some voters. While I am still young and able to stand around for hours to cast my vote, many others are not. You have to consider the older population, those with children and those with medical conditions that simply cannot stand in a line for this amount of time. Heck, I'm young and all, but I can't say 6 hours wouldn't have gotten to me either. Thank goodness for absentee voting. Anyway... I went on CNN just to catch up on the news and ended listening to Munir Venjenk, an older gentlemen from Florida. Here's what he had to say.
"... I think the present system of early voting is prejudiced against older people. I am 84 years old. I waited for an hour and a quarter yesterday. When I got to a certain point, they said it was an addition two hours to wait. People in their middle 80's cannot stand for three hours. And I think this will discourage many people from early voting."
I agree. Older folks are just as entitled to cast their vote as anyone else but if they are physically unable to bear the conditions that are presented, are we not denying them their right? Just something to think about.
There needs to be a better system in place. My grandmother is 87 and I know that 3 hrs of standing would not cut it. What is she supposed to do? Of course she wants to vote, but should she stand there to the point of swollen feet and fatigue. Granted some polling places have seats available and with friendly line neighbors, spots can be held until the actual voting time comes. This is generally the case in smaller cities and towns. What about in larger communities? You also have to consider the line wrapped around the building outside. Where can those people sit?
I don't think it would break the bank to improve the polling places. Maybe a number system with an speaker set up outside. Call 20 folks at a time. People can go chill in their cars. Or heck, get those buzzer things that restaurants have. You can go nap in your car and when your buzzer goes off... get up and go vote. I'm sure those ideas are silly to some, but we have to start somewhere.
I don't have any plans to be an official advocate or anything; I'm just stirring the pot. I want to get those of you who are actively fighting for voter rights to start thinking of ideas to fix the problem. Hurry up before I get old!!!!
2 comments:
Well, I don't know about other places but where I voted (community rec center) they had a separate area for those over 75 where they had chairs for them and moved them through faster. I took my mom with me to vote and we got there at 3. They gave us numbers and we sat down in the gym bleachers. They also passed out water, chips, crackers, granola bars, doughnuts, and coffee, which was cool. I ended up leaving and coming back twice and they still hadn't gotten anywhere near my number. Somewhere during the time I left the first time my mom gets taken to the other area because they opened it to people 50 or older. Finally its like 7 and they let my mom pull me over to the other side so we get done around 7:30. I liked the fact that they gave the older people somewhere else to go with plenty of chairs they could actually sit in and get up from, but the waits were crazy. I saw a lot of other people leave and I'm pretty sure some of them didn't come back. I don't think they were very well prepared for this many voters, and it wasn't something they could have expected, so I'm not too upset. I just hope they do better the next time.
That's awesome. I'm glad to know some polling places are considering these issues.
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