Voters Face Long Lines, Ballot Problems

Nov. 4, 2008 — -- People waited for hours in long lines to cast their votes in the presidential election in a day largely free of major voting breakdowns or systemic irregularities.

The main complaint was long lines, as the sheer number of voters overwhelmed polling places, particularly in battleground states like Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio. In some cases, voters lined up around the block or waited more than five hours to cast a vote.

Voters faced a variety of other problems -- there were scattered complaints of voting machine malfunctions and voters being improperly turned away from the polls -- and several lawsuits were filed.

The Republican Party plans to go to court tonight in Pennsylvania to try to extend voting hours near Pittsburgh and to complain about alleged machine malfunctions in at least one other county, a party lawyer told ABC News. The Allegheny County Solicitor said that no legal action has been filed to extend voting in the county, where polls have closed.

The Election Protection Coalition, a group of voting rights groups, reported that it had received 50,000 calls to its voter hot line by this afternoon, including complaints about broken machines in Florida and Michigan.

There were also numerous reports of optical scanner machines breaking down in North Carolina, though voters were allowed to complete ballots normally so they could be fed through machines later.

Republicans were headed to court in at least two other states as of this afternoon.

In Ohio, the Republican Party filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, claiming that she had not done enough to ensure provisional ballots are counted consistently throughout the state. An earlier version of the suit was dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In Virginia, a federal judge ordered election officials to preserve late-arriving absentee ballots from overseas that Republicans say should be counted. The lawsuit, filed Monday, contends that ballots from thousands of troops will not be counted because they were not sent overseas with enough time for the troops to get them in. The judge plans to hold another hearing Nov. 10.