Have minority voters typically faced longer lines at polling places in recent elections?
Long lines to vote remain more common in urban precincts with larger minority populations, according to MIT-led surveys of recent national elections. In 2016's general election white voters waited 10 minutes on average to vote, Latino voters waited 13 minutes and Black voters waited 16 minutes.
In the 2018 midterms, as a precinct's percentage of nonwhite voters increased, so did wait times—from 5 minutes in districts that were 90% white or more, to 32 minutes in districts that were 90% nonwhite or more. The MIT survey, conducted in 2018 with the Bipartisan Policy Center, found "especially dramatic" increases in wait times in some states.
Anecdotal reporting of long waits in 2020 primaries suggests challenges remain, a Texas historian writes. "So far in 2020, voters have seen major delays, especially in majority Black neighborhoods."
