An Analysis of Long Lines in Richland County, South Carolina

In his State of the Union address, President Obama referred to long lines faced at the polls on November 6, 2012, and said, “we have to fix that.” Although it seems to have received relatively little national attention, Richland County, South Carolina, with more than 12% of its votes cast after polls were officially closed, was probably among the very worst counties in the nation for lines and wait times.

In this paper, we analyze the data from the DREs used for voting in South Carolina, and we compare the voting process in Richland County with that in Greenville County, where there were more total votes and more votes per DRE voting terminal, but where there were fewer than one-half of one percent of the votes cast after closing time.