Some New Jersey voters reported long lines at their local polling station this Election Day.
Some News 12 New Jersey viewers said that they waited up to two hours to cast a vote during the midterm elections.
One such busy polling location was at Public School No. 3 in Jersey City. Luckily, voters never had to stand out in the rain while waiting to cast their vote.
The Hudson County Board of Elections told News 12 that they added more poll workers and additional voting machines to help alleviate some of the wait times. But voters were still frustrated.
“It’s unacceptable,” said Lisa Lovallo Ceppos. “There’s bottleneck after bottleneck here.”
Voters waiting at the location told News 12 that long wait times at this particular polling location are a recurring issue.
“In 2016 we came here, we started all the way around three corners down from here,” said Lovallo Ceppos. “It took three hours and we were hoping that wouldn’t be the cause again this year.”
“It’s very frustrating to see people having to wait in line for more than two hours to exercise their rights,” said Rebecca Missel.
Jersey City Councilman James Solomon started to hand out bottled water to discourage voters from leaving. Pizza was also served to those who were waiting.
Voters are asking election officials to consider redrawing the districts in Jersey City to help balance out all of the wards. They say that they would also like to see early voting more accessible.
Solomon says that he plans to reach out to election officials to come up with a solution to prevent long wait times from happening again.