If students have a long to-do list today, voting could make it even longer with record turnout expected at the polls. The city of East Lansing received about 10,000 new voter registrations this year, City Clerk Nicole Evans said. The influx of voters has led to at least a 50 percent increase in some campus precincts, she said. To avoid long lines, Evans suggested voting as soon as the polls open. “If you really want to be able to vote, you want to try voting at off-peak hours and for campus, that’s right when polls open at 7 a.m.,” she said.
“Most students don’t get up that early because classes don’t start until 8 a.m.”
To accommodate, Evans said voting stations at each precinct have doubled from 10 to 20 stations. She has set up three-hour training sessions for poll workers and appointed more inspectors at each precinct. The city has expanded the amount of runners who will be available to solve various precinct problems. Each precinct also will have a help desk to expedite the voting process.
Dave Kelner, a history senior, plans on being one of the first to the polls.
“Hopefully I’m going to get up around 7:30 a.m. and get out there and get in line nice and early,” he said. “You probably need a pretty big block of time to commit to it.”
Many students said they would wait for more than an hour, but they also said they are trying to squeeze voting in between classes.
Evans, though, said students can still vote by being in line before the polls close at 8 p.m. That possibility has freed some voting time for students after classes.
“I guess I would have to go in time for my class, but now that I hear that I might have to go after my classes,” said Steve Miller, a no-preference sophomore.
Some people, such as geography sophomore Trent Housler, aren’t concerned about the anticipated wait.
“Yeah, I’ve heard about it, but I’m not too worried about it,” he said. “I think it should be well-organized this time around, hopefully.”
Meghan Dopp, a human biology junior, was scheduled to work at a campus precinct today.
She said many of the problems with previous elections discussed during the training session were small and should be solved for this election.
Evans said much of the training session was spent on detailing the rights and duties of challengers — people representing a party that make sure inspectors are complying with voting laws — at the precincts.
With six presidential candidates on the ballot and each party allowed to have two challengers per precinct, things could get hectic, she said.
Another new element to this year’s election is a law that prohibits campaigning within 100 feet of the voting area.
But given the importance of this election, Evans said she expects complications.
“I suspect people will try just because it’s just human nature,” she said.
“People will try. I want to make sure we have boundaries clearly marked.”
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