Balky machines, long lines hinder voters

Intimidation reported at Florida polling sites; Nevada judge denies Trump bid

Alton Savoye, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, waits to vote at the polling location Tuesday at the University Co-op.
Alton Savoye, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, waits to vote at the polling location Tuesday at the University Co-op.

As voters flooded polling places across the country on Election Day, some reported problems such as broken machines, long lines and voter intimidation in states ranging from Texas to Pennsylvania.

While voting proceeded without headaches in many locations, election observers said they expected a significant increase in the number of concerns reported nationwide. In particular, voters encountered problems with malfunctioning voting machines, highlighting problems with the aging equipment.

One major area experiencing technological problems was Durham County, N.C., which has more than a 250,000 residents outside Raleigh.

Officials there had technical issues with electronic poll books used to check in voters. As a result, state authorities told Durham officials to use paper poll books, rather than electronic ones, eventually leading to some delays. Durham was already using paper ballots.

Officials asked the North Carolina State Board of Elections to extend voting hours in some precincts, a request that was echoed by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign manager. On Tuesday evening, state officials agreed to extend voting in eight precincts, pushing back the closing of polls by as much as an hour in some Durham County locations and by 30 minutes in Columbus County.

The first high-profile legal action of the day saw Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign headed to court for a hearing in Nevada after filing a lawsuit arguing that polls were improperly kept open late during early voting Monday in Clark County.

According to the lawsuit filed by the Republican nominee, this was done "to help Hillary Clinton." Trump's campaign asked for the voting machines and ballots involved "be set aside, sequestered and impounded" to preserve the status quo "in the event of post-election challenges."

A spokesman for Clark County noted that early voting records already have to be preserved under state law and said that no polling precincts were improperly kept open. At a hearing Tuesday morning, a judge questioned the Trump campaign's attorney and ultimately denied the request to preserve evidence in the case.

As the presidential campaign neared its conclusion, officials across the country prepared for the possibility of confusion and chaos on Election Day.

Voters in Florida, a key battleground, reported multiple accounts of voters saying they have encountered aggressive, intimidating behavior, according to a nonpartisan group monitoring election issues nationwide.

"In Florida we continue to receive a substantial amount of complaints about voter intimidation," said Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which is running an independent effort to field voter complaints and questions.

Clarke said her group received reports from Miami-Dade County of "yelling, people using megaphones aggressively." In Jacksonville, in the northeast corner of the state, Clarke said, "an unauthorized individual was found inside [a] polling place."

This person was at St. Paul's Methodist Church, a polling precinct in what Clarke described as a part of Jacksonville with predominantly black residents.

"He was asked to leave and refused," she said. "Through our intervention and calls, that individual has been removed. Unauthorized individuals have no place in the polls."

On Tuesday afternoon, Colorado officials reported what could have been one of the biggest disruptions of the day. A spokesman for the secretary of state's office said that the voter registration system was down in parts of the state, which meant that clerks could not process mail ballots and also meant that in-person votes would be viewed as provisional. The issue was resolved by midafternoon.

Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said that they are seeing more problems with voting machines than they have seen in past election years.

"There are more machine breakdowns and more malfunctions all over the place," Weiser said. "It's really widespread."

These breakdowns are not a surprise, Weiser said, because 42 states are using machines that are 10 or more years old. There have been issues with machines in South Carolina, New York, Missouri, Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois and Indiana.

"These machines are just degrading," Weiser said.

One specific problem mentioned Tuesday by Weiser was "vote flipping," which is what Trump seemed to be referencing. This occurs when a voter presses a button on a touch screen for one person but the machine shows them voting for another candidate.

"We've seen more malfunctions and more vote flipping all over the place," Weiser said. But it was not clear how many machines were seeing vote flipping.

Mark Thomas, director of elections in Utah, said that on Tuesday morning, officials in Washington County found that none of their voting machines were working. They wound up using paper ballots as a backup; the issue with fixing the machines was finished by noon, he said.

Information for this article was contributed by Katie Zezima of The Washington Post.

A Section on 11/09/2016

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