Gus Trudell-Richardson, a UI student voter, stood in line for nearly seven hours before he could cast his ballot on Election Day. He and many other students experienced long waiting times and general confusion at the Recreation Center while waiting to vote.
Trudell-Richardson was an unregistered voter who came to the polls and registered the same day. He stood in line for registration for 45 minutes and in line to fill out a ballot for six hours.
“There were people in front of me in the line that left after about an hour before I got to vote. I didn’t get to vote until around 10 p.m. By then, Idaho had already been called in the presidential race.”
Trudell-Richardson lives in the 8th voting precinct in Moscow. The 8th precinct covers most of on campus housing and Greek Row, as well as some off campus apartments. In total, there were 508 voters in that precinct, with 490 of them being registered on the same day.
By the time the polls closed at 8 p.m., there were still around 200 people in line to vote. Lines did not clear up until late into the night.
Dr. Connie Brumm, one of the volunteer poll workers for the eighth precinct and a board member for the League of Women Voters, explained that the voting process in the UI Rec Center was slowed down because of a miscalculation in planning and not because of staffing issues.
To register voters, each voting precinct was provided with an E-poll book, a smart device that is not connected to the internet that registers voters. For each voter who was not previously registered, there was a longer than a minute buffer for the information to be stored on the device.
This year, there were many first-time voters, and many of them had not previously registered. Because of the limitations of the devices, this caused a massive pile-up in lines leading to the voting booths, resulting in five or more hours of waiting time for most students to vote.
Despite long wait times and general frustration, Brumm noted that voters did not cause any unpleasant commotion.
“Everyone was kind, calm and well-behaved,” Brumm said.
Julie Fry, the Latah County Clerk, said that up to three registration machines per line will be installed next election season to keep things moving. She also shared that there was a low amount of early voter registration this year, causing registration lines to clog up.
She also encourages voters to “plan their vote” and register early online in order to skip the lines to the booth.
“It’s really easy to register online, and it doesn’t take a long time at all. When you register on election day, it takes a much longer time.” Fry said.
Ben DeWitt can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected]