LINES IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE.

In yesterday's thread on Rachel Maddow's smart explanation of voting lines as a modern poll tax, there were a couple interesting comments from foreign readers. James wrote:

I voted in the recent Canadian federal election. As is typical for me, it took about 10 minutes to stroll to the polling place, 5 minutes to vote, and 10 minutes to wander back -- in the middle of the largest city in the country.How hard is it to run an election properly?

Another Canadian, Paul Joy, agrees:

I've been voting in Canadian elections for 42 years. I've never had to wait in any lines. The polling stations have always been well staffed (usually by retirees), and the process has been smooth and simple. You need to bring in your right to vote card, that is sent out to everyone a few weeks before the election by the federal government, a #2 pencil and the paper with the candidates' names on them in alphabetical order. Mark your X and put it in the ballot box.You will be finished in a matter of minutes.

Following up, Jo says:

This is absurd. I've voted in Canadian and British election. I've never stood in line to do so. Neither has my wife, and she's from Australia where they make everybody vote. Granted, our polling machines consist of a piece of carboard and a box. But still, Americans should ponder just how ridiculous this situation is.

As did Dan:

I live in London, England. Each time I've voted (for local MP and Mayor of London) it has taken me 3 minutes to walk to the polling station and less time than than that to actually vote.I'd say that half an hour would be unacceptable, never mind 5 hours.

And an anonymous Aussie -- which is to say, someone from a country in which voting is compulsory -- says:

In Australia voting is on Saturdays, and the polls are open at eight, and stay open until usually around six, and you can vote anywhere you want, so you can vote near work or near the shops or home or whatever. You vote on a paper ballot in a cardboard booth, so setting up lots of polling stations with lots of booths is not particularly difficult or expensive. Since everyone is required to vote it's not that hard to predict turnout and plan accordingly. You enrol to vote with the federal government (it's also compulsory to enrol) and for months before the election they go around checking everybody's enrolled, so the information is usually up to date, and there's no ID requirement, so it takes you about ten seconds to be a handed a ballot. As a consequence, in most areas there are lots of polling venues and little to no queueing. The most I've ever queued is ten minutes and more often there is no queue at all.

And Fostert steps beyond the developed world:

A lot of people have mentioned that this is a disgrace. But how much of a disgrace is it, really? Obviously, we don't compare well to modern industrialized countries. But how do we compare to developing countries? Sadly, not too well. On my last trip to India, I had a free day while my traveling friend was trying to get a visa at the US consulate in Chennai. So I watched some TV, and it turned out that it was election day in Gujarat. Woohoo! So watched the national coverage. It was in Hindi with Tamil subtitles (I was Tamil Nadu). And when they talked to the locals in Gujarat, the language switched to Gujarati. But here's the thing: I could still follow it as the results poured in...They had footage of the polls, and the lines were shorter than here. The waits were less than two hours. And let's face it, you can't buy a train ticket in India without at least a two hour line. Almost nothing works properly in India. But elections do. They can manage an election with twenty three official languages, a billion people (half of whom are illiterate), and cultural differences that make Europe look completely homogeneous. All in a country that is incapable of keeping the electricity on for 24 hours in a row. It's probably unrealistic for us to achieve the standards of the industrialized world, but can't we at least do better than the developing world?

I'm not sure if there's any comparative work surveying how long it takes the median voter to register their preference in different democracies, but if there is, I'd love to see the data.