Living in the UK, I'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

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't even get to go on the world's first 14-loop rollercoaster at the end. Genuinely inspiring.