Long Voting Lines in Livonia, Michigan? I Don't Think So!

Livonia, Michigan -- I'm a person that doesn't like to get up early unless I have to, so when it came to choosing when to vote, first thing in the morning wasn't even an option. When I arrived at work at 8:30, I started hearing stories from various people. One was in line for an hour at 7 this morning! Another said there were 70 people waiting at 5 minutes to 7 AM. I could not believe it. If lines are this long first thing in the morning, how long will they be at rush hour when I leave work?

My fears were doubled when my boss arrived to work at 9:50, after having waited in line for over 2 hours. News stories reported long lines, unorganized polls, and frustrated voters. Since this would be my first time voting in Livonia, I was basically expecting I'd end up camping out for the night once I got in line to vote. I left work right on time, 5 PM on the dot, and was pretty happy to get home within a half hour. After one of my fastest commutes in awhile, I picked up my husband and we decided to walk to the polls, fearing there wouldn't be parking.

Turning the corner to approach our polling location around 5:45 PM, we thought we were lost. There was no one around! There were no cars, no lines, no nothing! We walked towards the school anyway and saw a sign stating voting was here. At least we had found the right place. I feared still that the line would be inside.... but there was no one waiting at the first table! Amazing! I previously lived in Garden City and always had to wait in line for at least 30 minutes to vote, so to show up and see no one else waiting was such a surprise.

We were asked what precinct we were in, and being new to the city we didn't know. They showed us two maps and told us to choose the one that our house would fall in. Unfortunately, our house could easily have fallen in both since the black line was right across our street. They looked up our names and let us know which one, this only took a minute.

Now onto the next table! Here we were asked to fill in the Voting Application. Once again there was no one in line for this and it took only a minute. As soon as we were done, the lady at the next table was ready for people to check in. This was probably the longest part of the whole process. It took her almost 5 minutes to find our names in the alphabetically listing. I never really understood why they put people in these positions that take that long. Granted, we were there when no one is in line, but I can see why the lines could easily get long if there was a rush of people.

Finally we were sent to the last table to receive our ballot. There were a few others in front of us, and there were half a dozen people already voting. We each took one of the open standing booths and got to voting. Our city still uses the old fashioned "fill in the oval" voting cards - I just can't wait until we go electronic! Maybe 4 years from now Michigan will be more advanced.

After filling in our ballots, the final lady we had to deal with ripped off the top number and asked us to feed them into the machine. The number on the machine for "number of votes" was over 570, so we must have missed the crowds! Whoever said voting in the evening was hard obviously never voted in Livonia. Overall the experience was pleasant and quick. It turns out I was anxious all day for nothing. I was home in plenty of time to start watching the projected elextion results on 10 different channels! Not everyone's experience was as easy as mine, but perhaps our city just does it right.