Early voters face 4+ hour waits in Lee’s Summit

LEE’S SUMMIT, Mo. (KCTV) - Usually when people vote early, it is to skip the line. That’s not what happened Friday in Lee’s Summit, where people were greeted with wait times comparable to a busy day at Disney World.

“A good 4-4.5 hours,” David Larkins said of how long he waited to vote.

“It’s been about 4.5 hours,” added Donnasue McDonald.

Jackson County voters didn’t plan to spend more than four hours at the Ranger Rec. Building Friday, but they did to vote.

“It was way longer than I thought,” said Jody Moore. “I expected to spend a couple of hours. Four hours, four hours and fifteen minutes was really crazy long.”

The people of Jackson County braved long lines, boredom, and even physical ailments to cast their votes on Friday. Two voters told KCTV5 the wait was worth it.

“I’ve voted since the 80′s,” Moore said. “This is probably the most important one ever.”

“This is the most important election in my lifetime,” said McDonald. “There are people out here on crutches, in wheelchairs, voting. It’s just that important.”

Jackson County Election Board Director Tammy Brown has worked in elections since 2001. She calls Friday’s wait times “unprecedented,” and also said low staff numbers contributed to the wait.

“We’ve had ‘Why don’t you open more satellites? Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that?’ Well, we’re a staff of 20 and we have 280,000 ed voters,” Brown said. “On election day, we’re going to have 125 polls, 103 buildings, and 1,200-some judges.”

While it took more than four hours for some people to vote on Friday, they were glad to get it done.

“We had other things going on, but we stopped in and voted anyway,” Larkins said. “It’s just a privilege to vote.”

“It’s important,” McDonald said. “We wanted to do it.”

“I just hope the candidates appreciate us waiting in line,” said Anthony Simone.

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