The polls opened this morning across the United States, and before the clock struck 7 a.m., lines had already developed at Auburn's Clarion Inn and Suites, the city's largest polling place.
"In the 16 years that I've been voting here at the Clarion, I've never seen a line this long," said Mike Watkins, an Auburn voter." The longest I've ever had to wait was 20 minutes, and now it looks like it's going to be an hour and twenty minutes. I've never seen a line this long, a wait this long or a turnout like this."
By 9 a.m., the lines at Clarion, located on South College Street, had died down and the wait was less than five minutes. However, by 10 a.m. Lee County elections officials shut down check ins for about 30 minutes due to a back up at the polling place's two voting machines. Too many people were inside Clarion's ballroom against fire marshal rules, voting officials said.
With the 30-minute suspension in check ins, a large line, stretching down several of the hotel's hallways across three different levels of the building, developed. More than 15,000 of Lee County's 103,000 registered voters are assigned to the Clarion Inn and Suite, which has only two electronic ballot boxes.
More than 10,000 of the 15,000 registered voters were expected to turnout to the Clarion Inn today. By 10 a.m., three hours into the 12-hour voting span, nearly 2,000 people had voted at the Clarion Inn and Suite. Longer lines are expected to form after work hours.
Polls will stay open until 7 p.m., and voters will be allowed to cast their ballot as long as they are in line at the polling place before 7 p.m.
Carolyn Carr, a voting attendant at the Dean Road Recreation Center polling precinct, said lines formed after issues with the electronic ballot box voting machines.
"Our problem was the voting machines," Carr said. "These new voting machines have a tendency to jam up. ... One of our poll workers fiddled around with them and found the problem. At one point we had this huge line snaking all through the tables."
Jacob Batchelor, a sophomore in mechanical engineering who made it in just to vote before the long lines developed at the Clarion Inn, said he would have been discouraged from voting if he had seen the long lines at the polling place.
"It really would have turned me off from voting today," Batchelor said. "I was thinking that today when I went in. Maybe the reason that only 60 percent of Americans vote is because there's not really a good voting system."
Batchelor voted despite the lines.
Watkins said he thought the polarization of the election this year was leading to the intense turnout at Auburn's voting locations.
"All you have to do is look at the election this year and how polarizing it's been, all the fear and the hype," he said. "This is a year when there's not really a good choice between all of the candidates. It's not an easy choice. You're asking us to choose the lesser of two evil. I bet a lot of these people won't even decide until they walk into the booth."
But even with the long lines, Watkins said he would have never considered not voting.
"I like to vote because I've been to countries where you can't vote," Watkins said. "In America your vote counts. If I only have to do this once every four years, that's not that much of a pain for getting to have a say in my country's direction."
Mikayla Burns, a sophomore in journalism and Spanish, was reading over one of her textbooks and had been waiting in line for nearly 20 minutes, but she wasn't discouraged and said it "wasn't too long."
"As a millennial voter, especially in Alabama, I think it's important that we get out and vote," Burns said. "It shows that we are going to be the most important generation to vote this year. I think it's really important. Polls have show that this is going to be one of the highest-turnout elections maybe in history. I was kind of expecting it to be this bad, but it's also kind of encouraging because it shows the country cares about how the election is going to turn out."
By noon, the wait time was still around 50 minutes at the Clarion Inn voting location, but lines were shorter at other polling locations across the city. Some had little to no wait.
Kaleb Steiger, Southern Union student, said it took him 10-15 minutes to go through the line as a first-time voter at the Auburn National Guard Armory on Shug Jordan Parkway at about noon. When he drove by the voting place at about 7 a.m., though, he said people were parking across the street and at the Lee County Humane Society down the road.
He said the importance of voting in this election is to have a voice.
"This election is crazy just because of the diversity between the candidates," Steiger said. "They're obviously the direct opposite of each other. ... So I think putting your word out there and making your voice heard is a really good right we have in this country that a lot of people don't have."
Steiger hopes Donald Trump wins the election, because he said the country needs change — something he believes the Republican candidate can give as someone who is not a career politician.
"I've been waiting for this for a while," Steiger said of Election Day, adding that he plans to stay up until all the results are in tonight. "It's a lot of excitement and it's a lot of stress just thinking about how much this country can change in the next year depending on what candidate is elected."
Claire Langford, senior in marketing, said she wasn't afraid to be "the little blue dot in the red state," though it comes with its disadvantages.
"It's kind of discouraging to think that my vote won't count because of the Electoral College," Langford, who voted at the Clarion Inn, said. "It just needs to be done away with and leave it up to the majority."
Also a first-time voter, Maria Diliberto, senior in nursing, said she didn't want to vote for either candidate but felt obligated to exercise her right to vote.
"One of them is going to be picked regardless, so I felt like just for myself I had to vote and at least know that whatever outcome happens, I voted for who I supported," Diliberto, who voted within 10 minutes at the Auburn National Guard Armory, said. Some peers, she said, decided to vote for one candidate out of spite for the other, rather than out of true support for the candidate they selected.
She and other young voters said they're ready for the election to be over, citing the political posts that have flooded social media during the election season.
"I'm glad that it's finally here," Diliberto said. "I'm really tired of hearing about it to be honest because there's not much positivity that you hear about it. It's only negative — I mean at least just with social media that's all you hear about. So it's kind of one of those things I'm tired of people sitting at their computers and arguing about it over and over again."
Lily Jackson, lifestyle editor, contributed to this report.
Reminders
- Cell phone use and photography are not permitted inside polling locations.
- You must be registered to vote.
- You must have a valid photo ID to vote, including any state- or federal-issued photo ID, a public universiry or college student ID, a tribal ID or a military ID.
Check for your exact voting location at AlabamaVotes.gov
Auburn:
- Ward 1: Boykin Community Center at 410 Boykin Street, Auburn, Ala.
- Ward 2: Auburn National Guard Armory at 1455 Shug Jordan Parkway, Auburn, Ala.
- Ward 3 and 4: Frank Brown Recreation Center at 235 Opelika Road, Auburn, Ala.
- Ward 5 and 6: Dean Road Recreation Center at 307 South Dean Street, Auburn, Ala.
- Ward 7 and 8: Clarion Inn at 1577 South College Street, Auburn, Ala.
Opelika:
- Ward 1: Covington Park Community Center at 213 Carver Avenue, Opelika, Ala.
- Ward 2: Opelika Learning Center at 214 Jeter Avenue, Opelika, Ala.
- Ward 3: Opelika Recreation Center at 1102 Denson Drive, Opelika, Ala.
- Ward 4: East Alabama Medical Center Health Resource Center at 2027 Pepperell Parkway, Opelika, Ala.
- Ward 5: Opelika Sportsplex at 1001 Andrews Road, Opelika, Ala.
Salem:
- Wacoochee School Library at 125 Lee Road 254, Salem, Ala.
- Crawford Volunteer Fire Department #2 at 10801 AL Highway 169, Salem, Ala.
Marvyn:
- Uptown Marvyn at the intersection of US Highway 80 and Alabama Highway 51, Opelika, Ala.
Beulah:
- Beulah School Lobby at 4848 Lee Road 270, Valley, Ala.
- Beulah Fire Department #3 at 10801 Alabama Highway 169, Valley, Ala.
Loachapoka:
- Loachapoka Town Hall at 6454 Alabama Highway 14 West, Loachapoka, Ala.
Beauregard:
- Beauregard High School Gym at 7343 Alabama Highway 51, Opelika, Ala.
Smiths Station:
- Smiths Station Senior Center at 3172 Lee Road 242, Smiths Station, Ala.
- Smiths Station Junior School at 1100 Lee Road 298, Smiths Station, Ala.
- Glenwood School Gym at 5801 Summerville Road, Smiths Station, Ala.
Pine Grove:
- Pine Grove United Methodist Church at 7235 US Highway 29 North, Opelika, Ala
Waverly
- Uptown Waverly at Patrick Street, Waverly, Ala.
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