How long would you wait?

I posted earlier this week about how easy I found it to vote from abroad in the upcoming New Zealand general election.

So I was shocked today to read about how some voters in the state of Georgia in the US faced a 10-hour wait to cast their ballot.

Many voters made admirable comments like, “If I’ve got to wait six or seven hours, that’s my duty to do that. I’ll do it happily.”

But it got me thinking, and it’s a question worth considering for all of us: if you were faced with an indeterminable delay on polling day, how long would you be willing to wait?

Would your civic duty come above all else and you’d wait through rain, hail, or shine? Would you wait for hours, days, or weeks? Or would that urgent task, familial responsibility, or frustration take priority?

It’s unlikely we’ll ever be faced with such as situation, but it’s an interesting thought experiment, nonetheless.