Must Read Report on Need for Emergency Paper Ballots! Avoid Disenfranchisement in 2008

From the report

"How can we prevent long lines from disenfranchising voters in this year's election?"

...The 2004 and 2006 general elections in Maryland were accompanied by very long lines, with voters in some locations waiting for hours to vote. Many left without voting and were thereby disenfranchised. This year’s hotly contested presidential race is expected to cause a record turnout at the polls in November.

"The formation of polling place lines depends on the interplay among the
number of voters, the number of voting machines, and the time each voter
takes to vote. It is a process similar to that which occurs on highways
during rush hour. Traffic flows smoothly as long as traffic density is
low. As volume increases, traffic gradually slows until, at some
concentration, it locks up and cars accumulate into long lines that can
take hours to clear.

Physicist William Edelstein has applied mathematical queuing simulation
to voting dynamics in Maryland. Dr. Edelstein studied an average
precinct with 10 voting machines and 1500 actual voters (a turnout of
75%). He found that if each voter takes an average of 4.6 minutes to
vote, all precincts will have wait times of more than 15 minutes at some
point during Election Day and 0.1% of precincts will experience wait
times of more than an hour.

But small variations in voting times can cause large changes in wait
times. An average voting time of 5 minutes would mean that 10% of
precincts would have a wait time of more than an hour at some point
during the day, and a voting time of 6.3 minutes would cause wait times
longer than 2 hours in nearly all precincts."