Bottlenecked!

continued

City planning manager Wendy Rampson had arrived and was double-teaming with the woman at the laptop, running drivers’ licenses through a reader and confirming identifications--this is the first time Ann Arbor precinct workers have had to do that. She was soon joined by AAPD chief John Seto. Worried about the crowd’s growing anger--“those people outside were cursing me out!”--Whitten had called him too.

I reached the head of the line at quarter past noon, two-and-a-half hours after getting on it. Pausing only to thank Rampson and the poll worker who reminded me to turn over the long ballot, I cast my vote.

As I headed out, snappily dressed man rushed in. “I’m from the county clerk’s office,” he announced. “I heard there was a problem here.”

“It was a bottleneck on the ID computer,” I volunteered. “Wendy saved us.”

Yolanda, too. On the way out the door, I gave her a hug.

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