City election officials have told my office that they believe they are ready for what is expected to be a large turn-out — and some lines at polling places across the City tomorrow.
Experts are telling us to vote after 9 am and before 4 pm to avoid the largest crush of people voting on their ways to or from work. (If that was already your secret strategy, I am sorry that I have shared it with everyone else.)
If you find a line at your polling place, there are several things you can do while you wait:
Bring along a sample ballot to study so that you know how you are going to vote for the offices and issues on it. Knowing how you are going to vote will shorten the time it takes you to vote — and everyone else behind you.Introduce yourself to the people in front of, and behind, you. If you don’t already know them, you should. Everyone in the line lives (or ought to live: see the next suggestion) within a few blocks of you.Make sure you are in the right place yourself. There are plenty of new voters and a few new polling places. Bring a good book. You have a stolen opportunity to read a few chapters without phones, kids, or bosses.Bring the instruction book for your iPod Touch, Blackberry, or TiVo. There are probably ten things about them that you didn’t know they could do.Be patient. It is likely that nobody in the polling place has ever seen an election this large. With good humor and determination, we will elect the President — and governor, legislator, executive officer — that we want.See you at the polls tomorrow.
