07:54 PM PST on Tuesday, November 2, 2004

From KING Staff and Wire Reports

AP

Touch screen voting machines like this one are used in Snohomish County, Wash.

SEATTLE – According to a nonpartisan research group, there were no "major meltdowns" being seen in Tuesday's voting process. But the group says there were plenty of small problems reported.

Some civil rights groups are questioning how many votes won't be counted because of voting machine malfunctions and voters being rejected.

The group Common Cause says at least 50,000 complaints have been called into their hotline.

In the Pacific Northwest

Voters in at least four polling precincts in Snohomish County said they encountered problems with the electronic voting machines.

When they touched the screen to vote for a candidate, voters said an indicator showed they had selected the opposing candidate.

Those voters told KING5 News it took at least four attempts before the indicator showed the correct candidate. When they finished their selection, a review list generated by the machine did show a correct voting ballot.

KING5 News North Sound Bureau Chief Jane McCarthy said a precinct worker told her that if there is a problem with a voting machine, it would be taken out of service if the problem cannot be fixed.

Snohomish County Auditor Bob Terwilliger told McCarthy he didn't feel this was troubling. He said the problem only occurred in 15 out of 950 electronic voting machines being used throughout the county.

Overall, 90 percent of all Washington voters believe their votes will be counted correctly.

Elsewhere in the nation

No major problems or meltdowns have been reported around the country, but there were plenty of small headaches, including machines malfunctioning and long lines that sometimes kept voters waiting for hours, causing tempers to flare.

By nightfall on the East Coast, scattered local snafus had been reported, but no allegations of widespread voting irregularities emerged.

Hyper-vigilance appeared to be the order of the day, which in some states prompted poll closures and unfounded complaints.

In New Jersey, for example, a suspicious substance later determined to be spilled salt prompted the 2-hour closure of a Mount Laurel precinct.

There were also problems reported with voter lists. In Albany, New York, an analyst with the state Board of Elections found herself crossed off. She says if she weren't so familiar with the system, she would have been intimidated and likely have left without casting her ballot.

AP

Voters at the Clark County Library in Las Vegas vote on new electronic touch screen machines Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004. The machines are the first in the country that also record the voter's choice on a paper roll that the voter can review.

In Pennsylvania, zealous GOP election monitors complained that some Philadelphia voting machines already had thousands of recorded votes when the polls opened at 7 a.m. Local election officials quickly explained that voting machines registered every vote ever cast on them - like mileage on a car odometer - and that did not constitute evidence of fraud.

In Colorado, Republican Party officials said a lawyer for the Democrats showed up at an Eagle County precinct with a list of registered GOP voters, planning to challenge them all. Democrats acknowledged it was true.

In other closely contested states - including Iowa and Michigan - the liberal group MoveOn.org was accused of disrupting local precincts.

In Detroit, Michigan, the NAACP filed a Justice Department complaint, saying it received 35 complaints that GOP poll watchers were harassing voters.

New touch-screen voting machines, criticized by computer scientists and several elections officials as susceptible to hacking and malfunction, were used Tuesday in 29 states and the District of Columbia. Only Nevada has mandated the machines produce paper receipts, which could make recounts more reliable.

In one New Orleans precinct, broken machines forced precinct workers to tell voters they would have to come back later, said an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Ohio problems

In Ohio, a judge granted a woman's request that voters who didn't receive absentee ballots on time be allowed to cast provisional ballots.

Plus, there has been a ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio regarding the District Court-ordered use of paper ballots or alternative means of voting for people in Knox and Franklin Counties, due to long waits.

The District Court decision had been appealed by Franklin County and by the Secretary of State.

The Sixth Circuit denied their motions for an emergency stay and ordered that the District Court's decision go into effect immediately.

Florida back in spotlight

Four years after a turbulent post-election drama, President Bush and U.S. Senate candidate Mel Martinez took early leads Tuesday night in Florida following a day of lengthy voting lines, but only scattered reports of problems at the polls.

Returns were slow to come in from urban South Florida, where Kerry has strong support and turnout was heavy.

AP

Several hundreds of voters wait in line to cast their ballot two hours after the polls were supposed to close Tuesday Nov. 2, 2004 on the campus of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla. This precinct was equipped with only five voting machines.

In Miami-Dade County, some voters waited to cast ballots more than 2 hours after polls closed at 8 p.m.

Both the Bush and Kerry campaigns prepared for the possibility of deja vu in Florida on an Election Day long anticipated since Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore by a mere 537 votes in 2000 to win the White House. The election was finally resolved 36 days later by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"There's been a very big smelly monkey on our back for four years," said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. "I am tired of Florida being the laughingstock of America."

Following an election marred by confusing butterfly ballots and hanging chads, the parties have vowed to enforce voting rights vigilantly at polling places with an army of hundreds and possibly thousands of lawyers.

Many Florida counties switched to touch-screen voting machines after the debacle in 2004, but activists warned of the possibility of fraud, hacking and computer malfunctions.

Problems cropped up almost immediately after the polls opened, although it was too early to tell how widespread the complaints were.

Ten touch-screen voting machines failed at various precincts in Broward County, officials in Orange County said one poll opened 11 minutes late, and two Bush supporters filed a lawsuit seeking at least $15,000 in damages after claiming they were punched, pushed, shoved and spat upon by Democrats.

Officials with the Election Protection Coalition, a group with volunteer poll monitors, said they documented dozens of instances of voters who had problems. Voters in several counties reported that polling place names did not match the street addresses, sending voters shuttling between locations.

Election supervisors also were blamed for delayed absentee ballots and mishandled voter registrations.

Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause and a former international election monitor, said a toll-free voting hotline, established by her citizens' lobbying group, had logged at least 50,000 calls.

In Boynton Beach, Florida, a few dozen votes were lost when batteries on voting machines wore down. A clerk says voters seemed "very distressed."

Some voters in Pompano Beach, Florida, who didn't get their absentee ballots, were improperly given provisional ballots, and it's unclear if those votes will count.

Tensions flared

A Democratic official in Cleveland claimed he was thrown out of a church basement by a screaming poll judge. Another judge allowed him to return.

In Florida, two Bush supporters filed a lawsuit seeking at least $15,000 in damages, claiming they were punched, pushed, shoved and spat on when they showed up at a Halloween rally for Democratic candidate John Kerry, dressed as giant flip-flops.

In Wisconsin, Republicans said vandals spray-painted "Illegitimate Democracy" across state party headquarters. In Milwaukee, police said tires were slashed on about 20 get-out-the-vote vehicles leased by the GOP.

Provisional and absentee ballot fears

Provisional ballots, new this election, also prompted disaster fears because they could delay any recount efforts. Any voter whose name does not appear on precinct rolls is entitled to cast a provisional - or paper - ballot. But election officials must individually certify them as being cast by registered voters before they can be counted.

A Kerry campaign lawyer said some Pennsylvania voters were prevented from voting when at least a dozen Allegheny County precincts ran out of provisional ballots. More ballots were on their way, and voters were encouraged to return later in the day.

The complicated issue of counting absentee ballots also added to the confusing array of new machines and new state voting regulations prompted by the debacle of the last race for the White House.

States have differing and confusing rules about deadlines for such ballots. Some states, for example, allow absentee votes to be counted days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Nov. 2. Others mandate that mailed ballots received after Election Day do not count.

And in more than a dozen states, election officials missed the recommended deadline for mailing absentee ballots overseas, meaning soldiers risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan might not get them in time to vote.

And there were challenges

In Colorado, Republican Party officials said a lawyer for the Democrats showed up at one precinct with a list of registered GOP voters, planning to challenge them all. Democrats say it's true.

And in South Dakota, Democratic Senator Tom Daschle won a court order forbidding Republican poll watchers in one county from following American Indians after they cast ballots, or from taking down their license plates.

Voting activists asked a judge Tuesday evening for an emergency order extending poll hours in New Orleans until 10 p.m. - two hours past the standard closing time - so that voters who were improperly denied access to electronic voting booths could have time to return and cast a full ballot.

Bill Quigley, a lawyer for the Louisiana Election Protection Committee, said his group had received numerous complaints of poll commissioners wrongly applying federal and state rules governing the use of paper provisional ballots.