Voters in key states face long lines, equipment failures

[DeaGLe^]

Tens of millions of Americans descended on the polls today as election watchdogs reported hours-long lines, sporadic equipment failures and confusion about polling places — but few signs so far of violence or voter intimidation.

Problems cropped up in key battleground states such as Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — states that could decide whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump wins the presidency. Most appeared to be the types of issues that occur during every election, rather than evidence of the "rigged election" that Trump warned his supporters to expect.

A coalition of more than 100 civil rights and voting rights groups reported that more than half of the complaints received about voter intimidation or harassment came from Pennsylvania. Those included voters being asked to provide specific forms of identification that are not required and Spanish-speaking voters finding no Spanish speakers to assist them.

“There is tremendous disruption at the polls today," said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "This election may be the most chaotic election … in the last 50 years.”

Nearly 90 million Americans are expected to vote today, in addition to more than 46 million who voted early or by absentee ballot. Voters are being watched by thousands of federal monitors, voting rights advocates, conservative watchdogs and even international observers looking for anything from dirty tricks to acts of violence.

Liberal and conservative interest groups are being extra vigilant because the presidential race tightened in recent days, and because Trump urged supporters to watch polling stations in "certain areas" for signs of fraud.

Problems were anticipated, particularly in Southern states freed under a 2013 Supreme Court ruling from needing federal clearance for changes in voting procedures. Fourteen states with new election laws, from Arizona to New Hampshire, also could face difficulties.

Observers came from as far as Europe and South America to see whether America's democratic system could withstand pressures from within the political system and beyond — extending, perhaps, to efforts by Russia and others to hack into election information systems.

The most likely problems are those that crop up during every election, such as closed polling stations, confusion over new voting requirements and faulty voting machines. Those and other problems led to long lines in North Carolina and Texas during early voting, when more than 46 million people voted coast to coast.

Early Tuesday, the biggest problems being reported included a breakdown of voting machines in Durham, N.C.; long lines and delayed poll openings in New York; problems with voting machines in Virginia; and confusion with closed or delayed-opening polling places in Georgia and Texas.

Chris Calvert, a would-be voter in Philadelphia's 48th Ward, tweeted that both voting machines were broken at his polling place. “No one can vote in our district today. Hundreds of angry voters,” he wrote. Federal law requires election officials to give voters provisional paper ballots in such cases.

In Precinct 134 in Detroit’s West Village area, the machine that counts the ballots was not working from the very beginning of the morning, causing confusion and anger among voters. Workers at the precinct told voters they could either leave their ballots in a secure box below the machine for it to be counted later or wait for a technician to arrive to fix the machine.

Broken ballot-scanning machines and other problems slowed voting at some polling places amid what appeared to be heavy presidential election day turnout in New York City. Only one of two scanners was functioning at a polling place in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park neighborhood Tuesday morning. And voting lines stretched down the stairs and out the door minutes after 6 a.m. at the polling location in a Baruch College building. By 8:30 a.m., the line had grown to hundreds of people and stretched east to Third Avenue.

Similar waits and confusion were reported at Public School 154 in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood. There, too, only one scanner was functioning, a situation that was causing “complete chaos and discouraging voters,” tweeted Megan Arend.

Until Tuesday, most of the battles have been fought in federal courtrooms rather than the streets. The Supreme Court weighed in Monday, denying efforts by Democrats to bar Trump's supporters from polling places in Ohio over the chance they would intimidate voters. Conservatives previously won an Arizona legal battle over how ballots are collected, while liberals prevailed in voting rights lawsuits in North Carolina and Wisconsin.