15th ward reports "packed" conditions, more voters than folks have seen in the last five years.

16th ward was brisk but not packed at about 7:15am. A nice line was forming as I left however. Do the folks standing outside a polling place really make a difference? It seems a bit late to be forcing a flyer on me...

The 10th ward has seen pretty high primary turn out for the morning hours. Only two campaign workers (Favazza and J. Smith) were working my polling place.

turn-out reports from StLToday: http://forums.stltoday.com/viewtopic.php?t=177032

Size of the lines are more important than reports of number of voters. Most city precincts got consolidated since last election. At my polling place, the 3 precincts that used to vote there were all merged together into one precinct. So when I vote and learn that I was Voter #195, that's equivalent to being #65 under the old system.

Value of pollworkers: No value at all in the contest(s) that the voter is focused on, but very valueable in lower visibility contests that the voter may not have thought about. A pollworker for a candidate for either party's nomination for State Treasurer would be very effective.

Good to know the precincts were reduced. My particular precinct has not changed, however.

The size of lines would also be be made longer by consolidating precincts so I don't understand how that would make them more important?

Precinct consolidation didn't reduce the number of polling place election officials by much. They mostly eliminated positions that they hadn't been able to fill anyway. At my precinct, 3 precincts were consolidated into one, but it is staffed by as many workers as would have staffed two of the old precincts. We have two lines now (A-K and L-Z) instead of 3 lines, so the consolidation may cause lines to be 50% longer but not 300%.

The main cost saving was rent. My polling place serves all the same people it did before, but the church gets paid for one precinct instead of 3.

That's great to hear. I am just terrified of the outcome of Amend 2. Sigh.

Standing outside is a fairly significant thing. To political junkies it may seem strange, but a lot of voters come to the polls unsure or need a reminder.