ChasElection08

Goose Creek craziness

UPDATE: Voters for Goose Creek District 2 were still in line at 9 p.m. at Goose Creek High School.

We've got some wild reports coming out of Goose Creek. Photographer Brad Nettles and reporter Jessica Johnson (who is there trying to vote: 3 hours and counting) say the line at Goose Creek High School one hour after the polls closed still has hundreds of people in it.

Yep, you read that right, hundreds, maybe upwards of 1,000. Jessica says kind souls are doling out crackers and water. Some people are throwing out radical numbers like 5 hours of waiting time.

We would love to hear from some of you Creekers. Post a comment here or send us an email at elections@postandcourier.com. if you swear a little, we understand. We'll edit it out for you.

--Janet

Unhappy from A to Z

There have been numerous complaints about the inequitable alphabetical divisions of voter names. By that we mean that, for example, all voters whose names begin with A-K in one line and L-Z in another.

P&C reporter Robert Behre reports that at his precinct Charleston 9, voters signed in in alphabetized lines, but then all joined the same line for the voting machines. This seems to be the exception. At Fort Johnson Middle School, James Island Precinct 8B, voter Katherine W. says she was finished long before her husband, Richard G. At my own downtown Precinct 18 at Rivers Middle School , A-Ks were waiting a lot longer than the rest of the alphabet. We've heard this repeated in precincts throughout the Lowcountry. Apparently, this has been reported in cities such as Rock Hill and Sumter as well.

Summerville High School, Tupperway Precinct

Wow! Voted in about 30 minutes, not counting my drive there and back and hunting a parking spot. In at 4:45, out at 5:10. 

Tupperway is evidently one of the smaller precincts. Other voters in the larger precincts, Flowertown and Greenwave, told me the wait was a great deal longer for them. One young lady had been there for four hours.

Everyone in the Tupperway line was amiable and chatty. Some dour faces in the other lines though ...

Jane

Passing Time

Well, the reading list was pretty esoteric at Ashborough West in the Oakbrook community outside Summerville. Normally a staid, relatively in-and-out voting precinct, Old Fort Baptist Church had a line of waiting voters stretched down the hallway corridor halfway around its sanctuary and circling back again to the door. The line lasted throughout the morning and began to ebb, weirdly enough, at lunch time.
 People know each other in the adjacent neighborhoods that make up the precinct and the word got out pretty quickly the wait was more than an hour. So they showed up with an assortment of paperbacks and hardcovers - a Patricia Cornwell suspense novel, The Diplomats, Puppy Chow is Better than Prozac and, ironically enough, 23 Minutes in Hell.
 Cell phones and ipods came out. People joked with their friends about how only a chance to vote for the Sunday alcohol sales referendum could get them in a line like this.
 Nobody seemed to mind the dealy. The  number of younger people in line to vote was striking compared to other elections. Michael Coutu stood still and said nothing, his eyes taking everything in and his fingers nervously snapping his driver's license and a voter registration card still attached to the paper it came on. He had never been to a poll before. He turned 18 in March.  After he voted he turned and quietly walked out.
  "My first time and the wait is an hour and a half," he said smiling wryly. "But it was definitely worth it. I know my voice is heard. I know what I did is for my country."

                                                                                                              -- Bo 

E-mail Roundup 2

More reports from the field:

From sports copy editor Cindy Cloutier: Just sharing my experience voting at Goose Creek High School. I arrived at 7:55 a.m. and the first order of business was finding a place to park - surely that was an indicator of the turnout. Yet I was excited to see the turnout and was prepared for 2 hours of democracy in action.

After finding the end of the line outside the building, I was encouraged to realize it was moving briskly and we moved in side by 8:30. Where tired voters with knowing looks told us to enjoy the wait. We snaked through the corridors of the high school before finding the end of the line. Hard to estimate the number of people in line, but this one wasn't moving.

Felt bad for some elderly people. Saw one extremely pregnant lady whose husband parked her in a lawnchair for her to wait while he stood. She said she was due this week and hoped to vote before giving birth. We all chuckled ... nervously. Overall people were patient and friendly. I guess we all realized this was possible and that it represented something exciting about the voter turnout. One young woman said she'd taken the day off and was going to work a Saturday instead because she was prepared to wait all day to vote.

One nervous woman finally went looking for a poll worker to explain she had an afternoon plane to catch - could she help her? They did, as they did handicapped voters without offending any of us in line. I never heard one complaint. Finally voted at 11:35 a.m. - 3 hours, 40 minutes of democracy in action. How exciting. But am now a fan of looking into early voting.

From Tim: The lines at Greater Goodwill AME were very long, but well-managed. As of 10
a.m., the wait was around 90 minutes.

--Janet