Voting problems crop up early on Election Day

High stakes
Control of Congress is also at stake this year, with all 435 House seat and 33 of 100 Senate seats are up for grabs, along with 36 governors’ offices. Because individual congressional races are generally decided by fewer votes than presidential contests, any problems at the polls are more likely to affect the outcome.

According to Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm, 32 percent of registered voters were using equipment added since the 2004 elections.

Nearly half of all voters were using optical-scan systems that ask them to fill in blanks, with ballots then fed into a computer. Thirty-eight percent were casting votes on touchscreen machines that have been criticized as susceptible to hackers.

Election experts say both types of voting machines are bound to cause trouble. Workers at a precinct in Loveland, Ohio, had to feed paper ballots into a slot to be scanned later because the machine couldn’t read them.

Voting-machine vendors said they had thousands of workers on to handle any problems. The Justice Department also deployed poll watchers at potential trouble spots.

“There will be isolated issues throughout the nation I’m sure,” said Michelle Shafer, spokeswoman for Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. “That’s just the normal part of elections. Overall we feel confident things will go pretty well.”

Just getting to the right polling place with all the right identification posed a challenge for some voters.

Many states established voter registration databases for the first time, and many found problems as they tried to match drivers’ license and Social Security data with the voter rolls. Someone may have a middle initial or use “Jr.” on one list but not the other, and data entry errors also occur.

Although not required by federal law, some states passed new voter identification requirements, some calling for a government-issued photo ID rather than just a utility bill.

Courts have struck down ID requirements in several states, but Missouri’s chief elections official, Robin Carnahan, said she was still asked three times to show a photo ID, despite a court ruling striking the requirement down there.

In one of the worst fiascoes, Maryland election officials forgot to send the cards primary voters needed to activate electronic machines at their polling places, and some voters had to cast provisional ballots on scraps of paper.

Baltimore County election director Jacqueline McDaniel said poll workers there had a few problems on Tuesday — one left part of the equipment in his car; another couldn’t find the electronic poll books because the worker was looking in the wrong place.

Some New Mexico voters complained they had received phone calls giving them incorrect information about where in vote.

Several Florida counties stocked up ahead of the election with extra voting machines, paper ballots and poll workers on standby. Apart from the state’s infamous chads in 2000, Florida voters have struggled with poorly trained poll workers and precincts opening late or closing early.

Florida Secretary of State Sue Cobb said she didn’t expect serious problems with the touchscreen voting machines Tuesday.

“History has shown that the machines are far more accurate than paper so we’re quite confident in it,” Cobb said. “There is absolutely no reason to believe that there will be any security issues, any hacking going on.”

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