Since I moved, this was my first time at a new polling place. Finding it was easy enough, especially since I sort of knew where it was to begin with. What amazed me was how long the line was at 6:30 a.m. I had to wait outside about 20 minutes in the cold before even getting into the building. They finally figured out that, with four poll workers, they could split the book in half and handle 2 people at a time, which helped a lot. (Why 2, not 4? Remember, there is no party registration in Virginia, so they have to cross you off in both party's books to make sure you vote in only one party's primary.)
The bigger problem is the layout of the building they were using, which is the historic house at a nearby park. By the way, so far as I can tell, the building is not accessible, so I guess wheelchair users have to vote by absentee ballot. At least here they use public buildings as polling places. I knew people in California who voted at somebody's garage or at a beauty parlor. The districts here seem too big, though. Maybe that's what comes of having grown up in a town of 5000 which had 3 polling places - 2 schools and the firehouse. (Actually, I suspect the reason for that had to do with the boundaries of the incorporated village, but that's too logical.)
Oddly, the voting slips were red for the Democratic primary and blue for the Republican. Has anybody in the Virginia department of elections watched a newscast in the past decade?
