I recently moved to a new area and got a card in the mail telling me my polling place. On election day I showed up and found out three districts use that building.
So I asked the volunteer which district I was in. He asked for my address, then said, “I don’t know where that is”. K thx, buddy. Then he whipped out a 20 year outdated paper map and asked me to find my house. The street wasn’t even there! After finally stepping out of line (and some exasperated groans of relief behind me) I did 15 minutes of frantic googling to find my district. Then I had to go to the back of the line and wait again.
I was lucky I had the day off work for all that nonsense. Most people don’t have that luxury.
That is the normal case in Germany. Our small town has about 10 districts and they all use the school, but spread over different rooms in different parts of the building. Your invitation contains your district number and there’s ample pointer where to find which district. And in case you lost your invitation and have no idea about your district, we can always look you up in the voter list, which contains all adult residents.
I take it your districts are bigger than several hundred people? In bigger cities we use several buildings, but any voting place should still be able to direct you to the right district. In case the local volunteers are unsure, they can always call the voting office, which contains the guys that planned everything and they clear things up, but that’s rarely necessary.
I recently moved to a new area and got a card in the mail telling me my polling place. On election day I showed up and found out three districts use that building.
So I asked the volunteer which district I was in. He asked for my address, then said, “I don’t know where that is”. K thx, buddy. Then he whipped out a 20 year outdated paper map and asked me to find my house. The street wasn’t even there! After finally stepping out of line (and some exasperated groans of relief behind me) I did 15 minutes of frantic googling to find my district. Then I had to go to the back of the line and wait again.
I was lucky I had the day off work for all that nonsense. Most people don’t have that luxury.
Uhh what ? That sounds like a lot of people in the same voting building
That is the normal case in Germany. Our small town has about 10 districts and they all use the school, but spread over different rooms in different parts of the building. Your invitation contains your district number and there’s ample pointer where to find which district. And in case you lost your invitation and have no idea about your district, we can always look you up in the voter list, which contains all adult residents.
I take it your districts are bigger than several hundred people? In bigger cities we use several buildings, but any voting place should still be able to direct you to the right district. In case the local volunteers are unsure, they can always call the voting office, which contains the guys that planned everything and they clear things up, but that’s rarely necessary.