INDIANAPOLIS — Tuesday brought another day of long lines at Marion County’s six early voting centers. But a website is helping voters know when and where to vote with the shortest wait, and how long that wait is.
Indy Vote Times gives voters an approximate wait estimate for every polling place in Indianapolis.
"We wanted to give voters a better way to make a plan to vote,” said Ben Kinney, a solutions consultant for Lessonly, which developed the website for Vote Safe Indiana. We thought there may be long lines. As we've seen, there have absolutely been very long lines. So we just wanted to arm voters with as much information as we possibly could."
Volunteers for non-partisan Vote Safe Indiana count the total people in line, then the voters leaving over 10 minutes. They report the data. An equation estimates the wait time.
Gabrielle Casey checked the website before she left home to vote Tuesday afternoon.
"That's how I chose to come downtown instead of the one closer to my house,” said Casey.
"I think it can make your time a lot shorter and you can plan ahead if you have kids to pick up from school and stuff like that to do,” said Aszura Taylor, standing in line to vote outside the City-County Building.
The verified wait times on the website seemed pretty accurate Tuesday, like three hours for early evening voters at the Perry Township Government Center.
"Voting is a sacred citizen responsibility,” said Amy Miller, a volunteer counter for Vote Safe Indiana. But we shouldn't have barriers. Frankly, a lot of people don't have the luxury of waiting two hours, three hours, five hours."
So going online before you get in line could potentially save Indianapolis voters plenty of time.