How long’s the wait at the South Side polls?

The average wait time at the Banana Factory is about five hours as of 2 p.m. today, with students and voters in line around the block.

Starting at 7 a.m. today, volunteers handed out water, pizza and donuts to the thousands of voters expected to gather outside the South Side’s five polling locations for the 2024 general election. 

Broughal Middle School, the Banana Factory, Cathedral Church of Nativity, St. John’s Windish Lutheran Church and Donegan Elementary School are adapting to the various needs of the communities voting at each location throughout the day based on wait times. 

The longest line wait time is at the Banana Factory, which experienced a machine outage shortly after opening, with an average wait time of 143 minutes by 9. a.m. The location had only two functioning machines most of the morning until two additional machines arrived around noon. 

Despite the two new machines, the average wait time increased to 234 minutes by 1 p.m.

Broughal Middle School had an average wait time of 26 minutes upon opening but peaked at 107 minutes by 10 a.m. A poll volunteer said an additional polling machine was brought in to accommodate the high volume of voters this year. By noon, the average wait time was 89 minutes. 

Cathedral Church of Nativity had an average wait time of 86 minutes upon opening and received an additional voting machine in the early morning. The average wait time by noon was 80 minutes. 

Donegan Elementary School had a 52-minute wait time after opening but averaged about 29 minutes by noon. At 1:30 p.m. the average wait was about 7 minutes.

St. Johns Windish Lutheran Church has maintained the quickest turnaround time for voters, with an average wait of 25 minutes from 8 a.m. to noon.