Voting problems spring up across country, groups say
WASHINGTON — Civil rights groups and election officials fielded thousands of reports of voting irregularities across the country Tuesday, with voters and advocates complaining of broken machines, rejected ballots and untrained poll workers improperly challenging Americans’ right to vote.
The wave of complaints came at the end of a campaign season dominated by concerns about ballot access and voting rights. It remained unclear Tuesday how many of the complaints were legitimate, how many voters were affected and whether the problems would affect the outcome of any races.
Some of the anxiety stemmed from a spate of restrictive voting laws passed by Republicans in recent years affecting dozens of this year’s closely contested races for House, Senate and governor.
By Tuesday afternoon, the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline had received about 17,500 calls from voters experiencing problems at polling places. A coalition of voting-rights organizations referred many callers to state and local election officials, the groups said. Together, the voting-rights groups deployed about 6,500 lawyers and monitors across 30 states to protect ballot access — more than any previous election.
In Georgia, voters waited more than four hours to vote at an elementary school in suburban Atlanta, where some voting machines were not working at the start of the day. Reports of broken machines also surfaced in Arizona and New York.
“This was voter suppression at its finest,” said Takeya Sneeze, 35, a truck