CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to better reflect that Naomi Cohen did not say students who voted at Stamp on Tuesday were convenience voters.

Some University of Maryland students said they waited more than five hours outside Stamp Student Union’s Grand Ballroom Tuesday to cast their ballots in the 2024 general election.

The long line, which wrapped around the ballroom, took students by surprise as it moved at a sloth-like pace. Some left the line after waiting hours to vote.

Long lines of voters at this university and polling places at other Maryland universities led to a delay in the release of election results, The Baltimore Banner reported Tuesday night.

Convenience voters — people who go to the first polling place they see without checking their assigned location — were a major cause of the long lines, according to Jared DeMarinis, Maryland’s election administrator.

Some voters must cast provisional ballots, which can cause a hold-up in lines, Naomi Cohen, a social action and democratic engagement coordinator at this university’s leadership and community service office, said.

Many students were registering to vote or had to cast a provisional ballot after changing their registration on Election Day, Cohen said. Some voted provisionally because they couldn’t return home to vote.

Sophomore geology major Joseph Gardner said he voted at Stamp because he couldn’t make it back to St. Mary’s County to vote Tuesday. Other students missed deadlines to request and return mail-in ballots.

[The Diamondback’s 2024 election coverage]

Sophomore information science major Shae Kelley left his spot in line after waiting for about an hour. He made it less than a third of the way through the line before leaving, he said.

“Not everyone has time to wait like three hours to vote,” Kelley said. “I thought it would be like 20 minutes.”

To alleviate wait times, the Maryland State Board of Elections worked with local elections boards to send more poll workers to overcrowded locations, DeMarinis said. Any Marylander who got in line by 8 p.m. has the right to vote, he emphasized.

“We want to make sure everyone votes and [stays] in line, because your voice matters,” DeMarinis said.

“We appreciate the patience and flexibility of all of the poll workers, staff, volunteers and election officials who helped voters move through the process as efficiently as possible,” this university wrote in a statement to The Diamondback Tuesday night.

This university’s events and guest services team opened an additional room so voters could wait in line “more comfortably,” according to the statement. TerpsVote also provided snacks to students and encouraged them to stay in line, according to the statement.

[Angela Alsobrooks wins Maryland US Senate race]

Stamp and Ritchie Coliseum are usually the two on-campus polling locations where students can vote. But College Park City Hall replaced Ritchie Coliseum as a voting center for Tuesday’s election.

The Prince George’s County Board of Elections decided Oct. 25 to move the polling location to College Park City Hall because of construction near Ritchie Coliseum, according to a statement from this university.

Tori Cohoon was taken aback by the time commitment needed to vote this year. The senior English major watched some students step out of line because they had to get to class.

“Not every professor cancels classes, so most people have to go to class,” Cohoon said. “If I had class, I wouldn’t be voting right now.”

First-time voter Elizabeth Gisler, who waited more than an hour to vote, said the wait made her feel “defeated.”

Many students are busy during the middle of the semester and might not have time to wait more than an hour in line, the junior kinesiology major said.

“I’m trying to vote, and it’s just taking up a lot of my time as a student,” Gisler said. “I’m missing class right now, but I do really want to vote.”

Some students said their experience with long lines Tuesday discourages them from voting in person during future elections.

“It ain’t worth it at this point,” Ibrahim Salaheddin, a freshman mechanical engineering major, said during his fourth hour of waiting in line at Stamp. “It ain’t worth it unless my name’s on that ballot.”