The VA polls actually open at 6am.. and at 5.55 at SLHS there were a few hundred people waiting already! The line moved quite quickly -- good work SLHS poll team!

Just as a heads up to my fellow Restonians: The Library bond question on the actual sample ballot that I saw is not worded as clearly as it was previously on here. The question regarding the $10,000,000 for the moving and rebuilding of our Reston Library and government center is now muddled in with a bond issue for county-wide facilities at a cost of $25,000,000. Please pay close attention to this, and do not be duped by it. It is all pretty shady if you ask me, and other voters agreed.

FYI - the Hunters Woods Elem poll location only has three electronic voting machines. I would leave yourself plenty of time to vote if that is your location. I got there at 6 a.m. and it still took 40 minutes to vote. There are also paper ballots booths, but the line was still moving rather slowly.

I drove by Terraset Elementary this morning on my way to work and the line of cars parked on the side of the road was incredible. Needless to say I didn't bother stopping and went straight to work. I'll try again after work... :/

I was at Terraset at 5:55, just before the polls opened. I was there around the same time in 2008. Lines were much shorter this year.

South Lakes, in at 11am, out at 11:15am. Shocked, I was expecting long lines and prepared myself for a good wait. Poll worker said that I came at a good time.

I stood in line at Terraset for about 45 minutes. I believe that I got there about 8:15 am. I have never seen the line that long!

walked into South Lakes at 1:32, checked in, cast and left by 1:36.

I was at Forest Edge Elementary School at 6:15 a.m. Line was longest I ever saw. Left and came back at about 10:00 a.m. After a respite, the line was long again. I think this is going to be a heavy election turnout day in northern Virginia, which is great to see. Jim F.

I arrived at the Forest Edge (Reston 2#) polling place and was surprised to find only THREE electronic voting booths. Last year there were SIX. On the side of the THREE electronic booths, was a gentleman encouraging people to vote on paper, because as he said, it was faster. What is this all about? This appears much less efficient and why is paper voting being encouraged over electronic cast? This makes no sense. It is 2012 not 1912, the county should be moving forward, not re-visiting the past. Paper is wasteful and there is no indication to me that paper ballots will be counted any more efficiently than electronic. Plus there is also the specter of paper vote tampering. How easy would it be to switch out a box full of paper ballots with a box full of fictitious ones. This is causing longer lines and is discourage voting. This practice should be stopped immediately. The county should be adding more electronic booths not reducing them.

Grant,

The "paper ballots" are actually filled out by the voter and then optically scanned and totaled. The scanned paper ballots drop into the bin and the scanner totals the vote.

Not very high-tech but pretty tamper resistant and auditable.

The problem with the all electronic voting systems that are used in VA is that there is no paper trail. If the machine fails for some reason (either by malicious actions or just a bug) there is nothing that can be traced back to the vote that was actually cast by the voter.

I am not a voting machine expert, but have been in the network security business for some time. So, I believe that a paper record is critical part of an audit trail. One issue I see with the optical scanner is that, while I know what I put on the ballot (what votes I cast by filling in the circles) the scanner does not show me (visibly) how it counted each vote -- for my verification. IMHO...A better solution would include both a paper audit trail (like the current system) and a way for the voter to confirm that his votes were scanned/counted correctly by the scanner -- for example giving us a voting receipt or a screen that showed how it was counted.

Also, according to this article, one optical scanner can replace a bunch of the electronic voting machines (lower cost).

http://www.virginia-organizing.org/content/take-action-today-continue-ban-new-electronic-voting-machines-dres

I agree with Patrick, I think it is important to have a paper trail and this is a safer way to vote. Also, if you want the county to move forward and have the best equipment available and more of it, then we have to vote to support that system. Someone has to pay for it and the message I've been hearing is that we don't want to invest in government and infrastructure. So why would we expect to have up to date equipment.

I got to Armstrong Elementary at 6:15 AM and parking was crazy. I waited on line over 1 1/2 hours. They had 5 electronic voting machines.

I didn't count but South Lakes probably had the same number but I found the paper scantron ballot just as quick to fill out. And more efficient, too. At least 20-30 voters filling out the paper version at the same time.