Long lines, machine breakdowns mar vote
ATLANTA— Problem signs that arose during weeks of early voting carried into U.S. election day as some voters across the country faced hours-long lines, malfunctioning voting equipment and unexpectedly closed polling places.
Some of the biggest backups were in Georgia, where the governor’s race was among the nation’s most-watched midterm contests and was generating heavy turnout.
One voter in Gwinnett County, Ontaria Woods, waited more than three hours and said she saw about two dozen people who had come to vote leave because of the lines.
“We’ve been trying to tell them to wait, but people have children,” Woods said.
“People are getting hungry. People are tired.”
The good-government group Common Cause blamed high turnout combined with too few voting machines, ballots and workers.
Fulton County elections director Richard Barron acknowledged that some precincts did have lines of voters but said that was due to the length of the ballots and voting machines taken from use because of an ongoing lawsuit, although plaintiffs in the case dispute that as a reason.
While voting went on without a hitch in many communities, voters from New York to Arizona faced long lines and malfunctioning equipment.
By Tuesday afternoon, the non-partisan Election Protection hotline had received about 17,500 calls from voters reporting problems at their polling places.
Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which helps run the hotline, said that number was well ahead of the last midterm election in 2014, when it had received about 10,400 calls by roughly the same time.
Tuesday’s election marked the first nationwide voting since Russia targeted state election systems in the 2016 presidential race.
Federal, state and local officials have been working to make the nation’s myriad election systems more secure.
There were no signs throughout the day that Russia or any other foreign actor had tried to launch cyberattacks against voting systems in any state, federal authorities said.