USA Today reports problems in three states:
Election machine glitches caused delays and jangled nerves in at least three states today as voters began turning out for midterm elections that could set the tone for the last two years of President Bush’s term in office.
Up for grabs are all 435 House seats, 33 Senate seats and governorships in 36 states as well as ballot initiatives in some states on such topics as gay marriage and stem-cell research.
Voting was delayed in dozens of precincts in Indiana and Ohio, while in Florida some election officials had little choice but to turn to paper ballots instead.
“We got five machines — one of them’s got to work,” said Willette Scullank, a troubleshooter from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, elections board.
Election officials in Delaware County, Ind., planned to seek a court order to extend voting after an apparent computer error prevented voters from casting ballots in 75 precincts. Delaware County Clerk Karen Wenger said the cards that activate the machines were programmed incorrectly.
“We are working with precincts one-by-one over the telephone to get the problem fixed,” Wenger said.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.