We have top two in Washington State and it sucks.

Let me say, from the great state of Ohio, that Jon Stewart's piece on Swing State HELL is right on the goddamn money. I am about to shoot my telephone. I may not turn the TV on until Tuesday night. Except the Simpsons and Bob's Burgers are on FOX tonight. What a dilemma.

I have been wondering if Netflix and iTunes have been seeing a sharp increase in customers from Ohio and Florida over the past couple of months.

We're not a swing state but we've got a ton of competitive House races so its been pretty ghastly.

OMG, tommmyrot and aurelia. I can't believe it took that long to vote yesterday! I early voted last Sunday (yes, my place was open on Sunday morning). I walked in, voted, and walked out in less than 10 minutes.

I think if I'd managed to get my ass over there early in the day it wouldn't have taken as long. I don't like that early voting is only on the touch screen machines with no option for a paper ballot. Touch screen takes longer for me just because my fingers are too cold to register. I have to keep rubbing my fingers on my jeans before each selection. That plus 3 pages of judges makes voting the ballot take some time.

So what's up with Florida? Aside from pushback on voter suppression what is leading to 7 hour lines? I know the ballot is long. Are they using the touchscreens? Do they have too few in each location? With paper ballots it's pretty easy to set up a folding table with chairs and cardboard box screens if you need to add stations.

And why is Romney deploying dirigibles in Ohio? [link]

Governor limited early voting hours, that coupled with a long ballot produces this situation.

Scott (governor) also wanted thousands of voters purged from the list and Republican SOS in counties refused to comply and they quit rather than go against what they thought was right.

Scott is evil.

The delay where I voted was a combination of the long ballot and waiting for the ballots to print. Since early voting stations permit voters from a wide range of precincts you have to wait for your individualized ballot to print. There were large machines for the oversized sheets and they printed slowly. The dude printing said the ballots cost $3 each but I have no way of knowing if he was making that up. Hard stock, large size, and many pages.

On election day the ballots would at least be preprinted for the precinct. Some places I believe still have touchscreen, but we had the scan variety.

eta: yes, Scott is truly Evil

Since early voting stations permit voters from a wide range of precincts you have to wait for your individualized ballot to print.

Ah. Okay, so that is where the touchscreen machines have an advantage. Here they program a card (looks like a hotel key card) with your ward/precinct info that you stick into the voting machine.

Either way, technology has become a choke point.

le nubian, I knew that other stuff. We should start a campaign to replace Evil Scott with Scott Evil.

There is a dude on an extension ladder outside my window. Why is my landlord having someone clean the windows from outside when they are the kind that fold in to clean from the inside? Am I really the only one in the building who does that?

In Florida I also get the feeling people are worried they aren't going to be able to vote on Tuesday because of long lines and limited hours so now there are long lines with people trying to vote.

I know in my Dad's case his voting place was always a nightmare to get in and out of. It was church on a 2 lane canopy road (meaning large oak trees on either side), no turn lane to get into the church. No way to go around the cars with people from both directions trying to get in to vote. It wasn't a big church either so the parking lot wasn't huge.

Turning left was a giant mess with people not wanting to let any one or letting right turning people in or people trying to get out of the church to turn left to go home.

Finally they changed it to a different church on a major intersection. It still caused congestion but there were multiple ways in and out of the church.