Just in time for Floridians to head to the polls again next month, two new studies have confirmed that wait times at the polls in Florida during the 2012 election were, frankly, a god damned embarrassment and a level of incompetence that undermined the very values of our great nation.
Well, at least they confirmed that Floridians had by far the longest average time in line to vote.
A study U.S. Government Accountability Office, confirmed that the average Floridian spent almost 35 minutes waiting in line to vote for either Obama or Romney. Only a handful of other states reported noticeably long wait times, and in those states, specifically Maryland and South Carolina, they state's average wait took less than half an hour.
Though the study notes that its methods weren't perfect, and that the average time could have ranged from 25 minutes to 43 minutes.
The study also found that 16 percent of voters in Florida waited more than an hour to vote. The same percentage in most states: 0. Though, in Maryland and Virginia an average of 12 percent of voters did have those extra-long waits.
Another study from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, sheds more light on the problems.
The most important result to Miami: the average delay in our country was 67 minutes. There are movies shorter than that!
In Florida, 61 percent of precincts had a wait time of more than 30 minutes. 22 percent had delays of an hour or more.
Race may have played a factor in which precincts had the longest waits.
• When we looked within Florida counties, precincts with higher percentages of black or Latino registered voters tended to have longer lines;
• Within counties, precincts with higher percentages of minority registered voters had fewer voting machines;
• Precincts with higher percentages of Latino registered voters had fewer poll workers when examining the issue statewide and within counties;
• Statewide, polling places with longer wait times were found in precincts with fewer machines and poll workers per Election Day eligible voter; and
• Within counties, polling places with longer lines had fewer poll workers per Election Day eligible voter.
Of course, you shouldn't expect long lines if any during this November's election since fewer people tend to vote during midterm elections. Though, it is important to remember that some of the people partially responsible for this mess will be up for reelection then.
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