Living in the UK, I& #39;ve never had to wait more than ten minutes to vote. Seeing footage of people being forced to wait for hours on end, *not even on election day*, to take part in the absolute base unit of democracy, is unbelievably strange and disconcerting.

It turns out that waiting times fluctuate massively - the last election had an *average* waiting time of just 8 minutes (obs figures vary!). If you are interested in reading more on this, this is a decent article from some GSNs (Great Stats Nerds): https://medium.com/mit-election-lab/insights-into-voting-wait-time-from-the-2016-elections-performance-index-6693576e9b99">https://medium.com/mit-elect...

I had to wait for one hour a little while ago and at the end of that I got to go on the bloody SMILER at Alton Towers. And yet people are queueing for longer than me and they don& #39;t even get to go on the world& #39;s first 14-loop rollercoaster at the end. Genuinely inspiring.