Voting goes smoothly for studentsat most on-campus voting locations

Although an early-afternoon technological blip at the William Pitt Union caused a few voters stress on Election Day, voting at polling locations across campus seemed otherwise to go smoothly.

Students casting their ballots Tuesday in the 2012 presidential and local elections experienced medium-sized lines to the voting booths. But although temporary back-ups occasionally interfered with class schedules, the Election Day procedures didn’t run into many issues — the only reported exception being a quickly resolved technical difficulty at the Union.

At Posvar Hall, students endured hour-long waits to vote in the morning, before poll workers expedited the process by dividing voters into two lines. Students who cast their votes at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall similarly withstood 40 minute waits in line around 1 p.m., disrupting their class schedules.

“It was hard to schedule class-wise. Now I’m late,” freshman accounting major Dave Barr said.

The polling lines snaked through the Ballroom on the Union’s ground floor, and students grimaced when volunteers announced machine malfunctions around 12:45 p.m.

According to a polling place volunteer, all 18 machines in the Ballroom shut down just before 1 p.m., several with Personal Electronic Ballots — the technology used to vote electronically — up on the screen. On the machines that were in use, the last votes froze so that the next students could not cast their ballots.

The problem was resolved within 5 minutes of its arising, however, as volunteers rushed to replace the PEBs and restart all of the ballots. Volunteers assured students who had already voted that the process was back to running smoothly and that their votes would be counted.

Despite some inconvenient waits and the minor delay at the Union, students seemed to be satisfied with Tuesday’s polling procedures.

“I liked that they made it idiot-proof. There was always someone there instructing you what to do,” said Barr, who voted at Soldiers & Sailors.

First-time voters agreed.

“I’m not really worried about not knowing what to do,” freshman Kaitlyn Saylor said. “It seems like an organized process.”

Around 7:30 p.m., as the polls neared their 8 p.m. closing time, a slew of Obama supporters marched down Forbes Avenue holding pro-Obama signs and calling out slogans.

Although the streets were loud, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire on McKee Place was mostly quiet and practically empty by that time, with the exception of poll workers and a couple of voters.

According to Lauren Branson, a Pitt Law student and poll worker at the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire, the state still told poll workers to ask voters for identification, even though Pennsylvania’s voter ID law was halted by the state’s supreme court. Branson said that identification has “not been a problem” this year and that “almost every voter has showed” identification, although they weren’t required to do so.

After voting for the first time, some students felt as if they had matured in some way.

“It was my first time voting,” said Brittany Robinson, a junior sociology major who voted at Soldiers & Sailors. “I feel good. I feel like an adult.”