It looks like my earlier comment on voting in the US was a little off. Terry has written:

I’ve gotten several comments from my overseas blogging counterparts on the two hours I spent waiting to cast my ballot. I guess I should clarify that this was not a regular polling place on election day. This was early voting at a local election office — a place that does not normally handle high volumes of voters. The wait was still unconscionable, but the early voting offices just don’t get the kind of turn-out this election is generating. By the time they realized the problem it was too late to do anything about it—a symptom of bad planning and an indicator that our election systems in Georgia are not run very efficiently. From what I’m told, my 2-hour wait was pretty quick compared to some other areas of town.

As for the 30-40 minute wait at a regular polling place, I think that’s the longest I’ve spent and was at either the 1996 or 2000 Presidential elections. Normal times are more in the 5-15 minute range. But that’s when there is very little voter turn-out — the norm for elections here. The system is scaled to handle that “norm”. It gets overloaded when the turnout goes way up. [b.cognosco]
My fault for getting out my soapbox.