I agree with you that a 7:00am to 10:00 pm window is quite a long time to get in to vote. And I will freely admit that since I am a Florida resident I have plenty to be embarrassed about as a global citizen. The 2000 election in Florida made us an international laughingstock.
I only have the news reports that I have been getting over here to go on. They paint a picture of people in many cities who had been in line for a few hours before the polls had closed. And that it was not just a matter of a bunch of lazy people showing up an hour or less before the polls closed. There were also reports of polling places that had to close for two hours or more until more ballots could be delivered to the site. If I were an average citizen over there with a 9-5 job I would assume that I had plenty of time after work to get over to the polls. Get home, have some quick dinner, be in line by 7:00-7:30 and be back home by 9:00 to watch the election results. I wouldn't fault them for believing that they had plenty of time.
Whenever you have an election that is this close it usually means that large segments of the population are undecided until the final days of the election. Those who are staunch partisans are the ones who can most take advantage of the mail in ballots. Those who are undecided are less likely to use the post or proxy methods of voting. Since the British elections are only one month long it makes sense that many of the undecideds wanted to see all of the debates and twists and turns before deciding. Not that I'm advocating the use of American style elections that run for 2 years.
Those who got burned by going to the polls after 5:00 will indeed be forewarned about evening voting in the future. But I don't fault them for being caught off guard this time around. Of course there are going to be those who wait until a half hour before the polls close. But it was not my impression that this was the cause of the majority of problems at the polls. Am I wrong on this?
The British are usually very fastidious about making sure that all the trains and tubes run on time. It's just a bit out of character to see the inefficiencies that were exposed yesterday. And I'm not saying any of this to look down on the Brits. Not at all. I'm just saying that I can understand their dismay at the way things were handled.
As for the college students on campus I can understand your conclusions based on the scant information I gave you. The circumstances are a bit more complex than people showing up late to the polls. The supervisor of elections for Hillsborough county at the time was an extremely corrupt egomaniac who was incompetent. His primary goal in the election appeared to be ensuring that he got reelected to supervisor of elections rather than running a smooth presidential election overall. He made sure that extra money was spent putting a large photo of himself, with his name featured prominently, on all election literature. His own job was on the ballot. Using public funds for one's own reelection is of course illegal. He tried to say that he had not done that.
There were allegations that he understaffed the polling places and purchased voting machines that could be too easily hacked into. He siphoned money out of the budget for his own personal spending. He was handily defeated in the election.
He was called to the campus at 3:00 that afternoon where he witnessed the lines snaking around the building. There were problems with the voting machines and the campus polls were understaffed. Many students who had waited an hour or more had to leave line to attend classes. Then they had to come back later to get into the same line all over again.
Many polling places throughout the county had to stay open later to accommodate the crowds. Hillsborough county was the last county in the state to submit its finally vote tally at around 4:00 am. The other counties had their returns in by 11:00 pm that night.
Then after runnining the worst election day in the state he made the unprecedented move of going to the county after the election and asking for more money. He said his office had grossly exceeded its budget. And he didn't even attend the county hearing to explain the reasons for himself. He sent an underling to request more money. Needless to say that he has been in court more often than not since 2000 trying to stay out of prison.
Anyway... My point in all this is just to say that even though the elections were being run by an incompetent crook, the voters were not penalized by having the doors to the polls closed in their face. They kept the polls open until the line had cleared. I'm just very surprised that they didn't keep the polls open later in Britain.
