Lawmakers among those snagged by voting problems

Andrea Hopkins
Reuters
Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Late poll openings and minor malfunctions with some new electronic voting machines were reported on Tuesday in midterm elections, and even some lawmakers encountered problems.

Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt, one of many Republicans who could lose her seat because of voter anger over the war in Iraq, was among the first in line to vote at 6:30 a.m. but her paper ballot was rejected by the machine at her suburban polling station, and election officials had to put it aside to be counted later in the day.

"The scanner machine would not accept it for some odd reason," said Schmidt spokesman Matt Perin.

While Perin said he'd heard scattered reports of similar problems across Ohio, a battleground state, he said Americans should be confident their votes will count. "My personal guess is the machine was just warming up," he said.

Cincinnati's other Republican incumbent, Rep. Steve Chabot, also hit a snag -- this time it was a new Ohio law requiring voters to show identification before casting a ballot.

Chabot's drivers' licence listed his business address, not the home address on the voter registry. Though the polling officials recognised the congressman, Chabot went home to fetch a bank statement to confirm his address.

Election officials and experts have reported electronic voting machine malfunctions in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas, but they said many of the problems were minor and temporary.

Requests to extend voting hours were made in Indiana and Tennessee to compensate for delayed poll openings.

"We're hearing isolated, scattered things having to do with machine malfunction, some reports here and there in terms of voter suppression and intimidation," said Steven Huefner, an election expert at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.

"It's still pretty early, but I'd hoped things would be a little smoother," he said.

In Virginia, where there is a very tight race for U.S. senate, election officials have asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into reports of voter intimidation.

"A call was made to different voters saying 'This is your new voting location,' and it was not the person's voting location. In another case (the caller said): 'If you go to the polls you might be arrested,' things like that," said Valarie Jones, deputy secretary of the board of elections.

ROBO-CALLING

Democrats in Illinois have also complained about a last-minute push by Republicans to deluge homes with automated phone calls designed to confuse voters.

An estimated 10,000 lawyers working for the Republican and Democratic parties are standing by across the country to intervene if problems arise.

Experts said it was still too early to know how widespread voting problems would be, since peak voting times often come in the evening. But glitches initially appeared limited.

In Florida, where widespread voting problems forced a massive recount in the 2000 presidential election, the secretary of state said only five of its 6,835 voting precincts opened late.

In Texas, the home state of President George W. Bush, Democrats have reported problems in 20 Houston precincts. One precinct was only able to get 3 out of 8 machines operating when polls opened, according to local station KTRK-TV. But most problems were resolved within 45 minutes and all machines were working by late morning.