One Vote at a Time

I worry about how much longer it will take each voter to vote under NC's new law.

Under the old law, a voter walked into the precinct or early voting site, approached the registration table, and stated his name and address. The poll worker found the voter in the poll book and either peeled off a label and stuck it on an authorization to vote or tore out a pre-printed authorization to vote (ATV). In either case, the voter had to sign the ATV (attesting that his name and address were correct), the poll worker then initialed it and handed it back to the voter, and then the voter took it to the ballot table and exchanged the ATV for a ballot.

Under the new law, the voter comes in and approaches the registration table with his ID....let's say for simplicity's sake, that it is his NC driver's license. The precinct worker has to look at the expiration date to make sure it hasn't expired, and then has to compare the picture on the license to the person standing in front of him. Only then can the poll worker go to the poll book and find the voter's registration.

The two extra steps of looking for the expiration date and matching the photo to the voter will certainly take a minimum of 15 seconds, and perhaps double or triple that. It might not sound like a lot, but when you multiply that times 100 or more voters an hour, that's a lot.

But wait, there's more....the new law does away with straight party voting. That means that the voter has to vote in each individual race. And that means more time spent in the booth, or at a table, or on the floor, or on the edge of the stage in the multipurpose room in the elementary school. And more time spent in the precinct means more crowding, more waiting by the voters behind you, and more parking spots being used for longer periods of time.

And with eight days cut off of early voting (a week at the beginning and one day at the end), the time available to vote is more compressed.

I worry, and I worry, and I worry.