World reaction to long queues of voters in US
Long queues to vote in the US have been celebrated by some of those who endured them as a welcome sign of enthusiasm. But outside America, there was a different take.
You may think waiting 11 hours to vote would be the height of frustration, but not for one family in Georgia.
“We made it, y’all,” says Johnta Austin in one viral video filmed as they reach the front of the queue, describing the lengthy process as an “honour”.
With early voting under way across much of the US, social media images show long queues of people, sometimes waiting for hours, patiently inching their way in towards the polling booth.
Some African Americans, including journalist Roland Martin in Texas, say they wept when they discovered such a motivated electorate on the morning of the vote.
In a video that shows a Black Lives Matter sign on the building, Martin says he cried after finding a “massive line after the polls had been open 27 minutes”, and that he prepared to vote by listening to protest songs from this summer.
Many of the Americans taking to the internet to show their voting pride are black. They say their vote is a continuation of the civil rights
line struggle, which they feel has been invigorated by the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Souls to polls,” is one slogan being retweeted among the US black community.
In Georgia, where in-person voting began on Monday, a federal holiday, some voters arrived before dawn to queue.
The state has a long history of voting problems but it’s not the first in this election season to see long queues on the first day of early voting. It was the same in Ohio and Virginia.
Record turnout is expected this year, with an unprecedented number of people voting early due to the pandemic.