Heavy turnout spurs glitches and long lines

WASHINGTON — Heavy voter turnout led to long lines at the polls Tuesday, and in some cases voting-machine breakdowns extended the wait for voters prepared to cast ballots in what could be the most monitored election in modern history.

With the 2000 debacle in Florida still on many minds, people waited for two to three hours in some places as lines snaked out of buildings, down sidewalks and around corners.

"I've never seen so many people here," said Kathie Kuhn, a 34-year-old Michigan voter. "This is really great."

There were numerous reports of people standing in line for hours to vote, including one in Ohio were people waited up to nine hours to vote.

The huge turnout was an encouraging sign to federal election officials, who have been working to restore voter confidence in the nation's election system since the controversial contest four years ago.

"The big story is that voter turnout is exceptionally high," said DeForest Soaries Jr., chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission created under the election reform law that Congress passed in 2002. "It speaks to a level of confidence that has to be there for people to vote, and that's a good thing."

Soaries acknowledged, however, that Tuesday's election was not without its snags, glitches and concerns over whether every eligible voter who showed up at the polls was allowed to vote. And, he said, the high turnout magnified the need to recruit and train more poll workers.

"Some of the glitches we are experiencing are attributable to not having enough poll workers," he said.

Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause, one of several nonpartisan groups monitoring the election, agreed. She said many polling places were overwhelmed by the crush of voters.

A complaint hotline run by Common Cause and the Hispanic Voter Project had received 75,000 phone calls by 8 p.m., Pingree said.

Many callers from battleground states such as Ohio and Florida reported not being on the registration list even though they had registered weeks ago, Pingree said. She added there were complaints over missing absentee ballots in Florida. And some sites lacked sufficient numbers of voting booths and provisional ballots.

"There were huge systemic problems in the polling places in terms of handling high voter turnout," Pingree said.