Some insights into those long lines at the polls

Harris County poll worker here. We have been absolutely slammed at my polling place, which shall remain unnamed. We have had 1 to 2 hour waits both yesterday and today. I am happy to see so many people coming out to vote, especially so many first time voters.

Most of the story of the long lines is told by the fact that lots of people have come out to vote. A very good thing. But a part of the story is told by the fact that we do not have enough poll workers inside. My Presiding Judge has asked the county several times for 2 or 3 very badly needed additional clerks but we have been turned down. The clerks have usually relied upon slack periods to rotate breaks. What if there are no slack periods? I have not had a break yesterday or today from this very stressful work and I’m anticipating zero breaks for the remainder of Early Voting. I don’t believe any of my coworkers have had breaks either— I’m too busy to ask them.

How would additional clerks speed things up? We have had many voters with questions about the process, especially our numerous first time voters. Each time a voter raises his hand or presses the help button we need to stop processing/qualifying voters or the other tasks we are doing and go help them. So voters who could have been qualified and could have started voting during that time need to wait. Many voters will stop, then wait and wait, for a clerk to help them, with longer waits for voters who need special language assistance. The delay clogs up the voting machines a LOT. If questions could be answered promptly these people would be long gone and room made for other voters waiting in line.

We have had numerous people needing to vote provisionally. Each provisional vote sucks up about 20 minutes of judge time. The judges normally could spot for people and fill in on certain tasks but they are busy.

We are having crowd control issues with no staffing to address them properly. We wanted to go outside and tell people about other polling places that had shorter lines. That would have alleviated our long lines and would have helped voters avoid spending hours in the sun. We had several people faint yesterday. But, yeah, we couldn’t spare any clerks to go out there.

There are also several initiatives and bond issues on the ballot. Many voters are taking a LONG time reading these— apparently for the first time. We have sample ballots with all the bond issues posted on the walls as people are waiting to enter the voting area. It would be nice to have someone out in the hall asking voters to familiarize themselves with the ballot initiatives before they get on the voting machine. But, again, we don’t have the manpower to do that. Instead, voters stand at the voting machine slowly reading and trying to digest what they see. And again, these voters might have been long gone if they had been prepared, with room made on the voting machines for awaiting voters.

There are many other ways that a few more poll workers could lead to shorter lines but I won’t try to hit them all. Just suffice it to say that we are struggling and there is a bit of an ugly side to these long lines. I understand that the county wants to save money but there is some human suffering attached to that decision.