Epoch Times Blog

I voted in Harlem, New York at the Oberia Dempsey Center at 127 W.127th Street, off of Harlem’s main thoroughfare, Malcolm X Avenue.

I thought I got up early enough; I arrived at my polling place at 6:20am.

A line 50 deep was already waiting by the time I got there. Within ten minutes, it stretched to the end of the block. A man wearing an Obama hat distributed free coffee to the voters. After an hour, I made it to the front of the line, which snaked around the small lobby of the former school. There, a poll worker was shouting out election district numbers, taking people out of the main line to point them to their voting booth.

(Photos by Edward Dai/Epoch Times)

The voting area was an auditorium with voting machines in the corners. I stood in line for another half hour with the people in my district, waiting to be checked against the roll book. There was one woman checking one copy of the roll book for my district. Our district had one old machine—the kind with the red lever and levers for each candidate. We were only allowed one machine despite the high turnout, because the number of machines is determined by the turnout of previous elections.

As I was waiting in line, the poll manager was on the phone with someone at another poll site. “You mean to tell me that you don’t have ANY green and white ballots? You’ve got to be kidding me. Honey, if I go over there and I see them sittin’ right there…” It turned out later that the paper ballots never got delivered to the other site. The poll manager was convinced that her site was going to run out of paper ballots before the end of the day.

By the time I reached the check-in desk, I realized that the single machine for my district was broken—the lever for one of the Democratic judges didn’t click when you flipped it to the left. The poll workers assigned everyone a number and asked us to take a seat in the auditorium chairs while a technician was called.

After a while the family before me was routed to the Ballot Marking Device, which in normal circumstances would be reserved for the disabled. They came right back. It was broken too.

Soon the poll manager came around and told us, “If you are willing to vote knowing that Line 10 doesn’t work, please go ahead. If you want to vote by emergency ballot, that is an option as well.” One young woman was adamant, refusing to use the machine.

Most of us didn’t mind the one broken lever. I don’t know how many people pay attention to the judges anyway; I certainly didn’t.

As I left the polling place, I glanced at the time—8:24—It took me over two hours to register my vote.