CAIRO — In the second phase of Egypt’s constitutional referendum, lines of men and women stretched along Monofeya’s main downtown boulevard, named after late President Anwar Sadat, where four polling stations opened at 8 a.m. to receive the 22,000 registered voters assigned to that main street alone.

“Mathematically, if each voter takes one minute to cast their ballot, each of the polling stations will require more than 90 hours to cover the number of registered voters,” principle of Al-Qadima Elementary School, who refused to have his name published, told Al-Monitor on Dec. 22, a few minutes before the two polling stations inside his school opened their ballot boxes to hundreds of voters who had already been waiting for almost an hour.

“If the turnout is 50% we would still need 45 hours, if its 25% we would still need 22.5 hours, and that is only if none of the supervising judges take a break, nothing interrupts the process and every voter miraculously takes exactly one minute,” said the principle, whose ancient, arabesque style palace-turned-school had more than 11,000 registered voters divided over two supervising judges.

Dozens of military and security personnel scattered across the school yard directing voters, helping the elderly and trying desperately to absorb the anger of those who frowned, yelled or sometimes tried to push open the school gate after waiting for hours.