BALTIMORE — Cars jockeying for position outside the early voting center on East Cold Spring Lane only to find a long line awaiting people inside.
Early voters like Franklyn Murray don’t seem to mind.
“People were starting conversations with each other so by having conversations with each other, then you weren’t thinking about the line,” said Murray.
Patience has been the key at what polling judges are calling the busiest early voting center in Baltimore with more than 1,000 casting ballots in the first five hours today and as many as 25,000 since it welcomed its first voter last Thursday.
“The lines have been long, but the average wait is about 10 to 15 minutes and the people have been great,” said Chief Judge Mike Williams, “They’ve been real patient and my checking judges have done a masterful job in checking them in.”
While more than one out of five registered voters in the state have exercised their right, Baltimore Election Director Armstead Jones says he expects the rush to pick back up on Election Day.
“I still have a feeling that on Tuesday, we’re going to have large numbers of folks voting, which is good,” said Jones, “We’ve staffed the precincts with more than we normally would do. We have trained now at least 2700 judges.”
During the primary election, the city had trained 2100 judges, but six hundred failed to show up.
It’s insurance to help accommodate the final push to decide contentious races at virtually every level after months of campaigning.
“I look at it like this,” said Murray, “My president is God. He’ll put in there who He wants in there and His reason we do not know why so we have to accept what the outcome is.”
