Voting nationwide relatively problem-free

WASHINGTON — In the battleground state of Missouri, Joyce Barger left her injured daughter in a St. Louis hospital and drove 30 miles to vote in the tiny rural town of Cedar Hill, only to be told to come back later because her polling place had run out of ballots. In Florida, where chaos in the 2000 election triggered a nationwide drive to improve voting systems, voter lines backed up sporadically when voting machines malfunctioned.

And in South Carolina, poll workers refused to let the governor himself cast a ballot when he arrived at the polls without the documentation required by the state's voter-identification law.

Despite these and other problems, the most hotly contested midterm elections in a decade appeared to go off with relatively few problems Tuesday, especially considering the fact that 90 percent of the nation was using a new high-tech system to cast its ballots. Balky new equipment, human error and other factors caused scattered problems in many parts of the country, but large-scale difficulties appeared to have been rare.

Even South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was able to cast his ballot after returning home to get his identification.

Democratic and Republican election monitors tracked the voting closely, preparing for possible legal challenges if problems developed in any of the battleground races.

But all in all, election administrators said they were relieved.

"It is looking like it held up better than expected," said Deborah Markowitz, secretary of state in Vermont and president of the National Association of Secretaries of State.

One exception seemed to be Denver, where an experiment with centralized voting in a reduced number of super-size precincts went awry because of a combination of hours-long lines and equipment failures.

"With the exception of Denver, it all seems to be fender benders and no pileups," said Doug Chapin, director of the nonpartisan Election Reform Information Project, which tracks America's transition to high-tech voting.

Officials at the federal Election Assistance Commission, created to help the states after the 2000 Florida presidential-election debacle, said they were satisfied with the national trend.

"When you look at a situation where we have 183,000 precincts in this country, there have been very, very few problems proportionately," said Thomas Wilkey, executive director of the commission.

Nationally, about one-third of registered voters were using high-tech voting equipment for the first time, according to Election Data Services, a consulting company that assists the states. Nearly 90 percent of all voters cast ballots using either touch-screen machines or optically scanned paper ballots.

High turnout complicated the voting in some places. In Missouri, the precinct at Cedar Hill Lutheran Church ran out of ballots by 10 a.m. because, a local official said, they had failed to anticipate how many voters would turn out.

"It's unbelievable," said Barger, 50, whose daughter had been seriously hurt in a car accident. "The only reason I'm being so persistent is that I really believe we need a change in this state." She was able to vote on her second attempt.

In the Cleveland area, a federal judge ordered that 16 precincts remain open until 9 p.m. to compensate for the problems early in the morning.

Similar problems were reported in Broward County, Fla., north of Miami.

In University City, Mo., a largely black suburb of St. Louis, Jacqueline Judie said she was confronted by a sign that seemed to suggest voters needed some form of identification with a signature in order to vote. In fact, Missouri law only requires some proof of residency, such as a utility bill. But when Judie complained, she said poll workers refused to take down the sign.

"I was very surprised," Judie said. "It's really disappointing that in this day and age you still have this kind of impediment to voting."

Voting-rights advocates also reported problems with new laws in Ohio, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Election Day also was tainted by complaints of dirty tricks that led to FBI investigations in at least two states, with some voters reporting intimidating phone calls, misleading sample ballots and even an armed man outside a polling place.

In Virginia, the FBI was looking at complaints of an apparently orchestrated series of phone calls in the hard-fought U.S. Senate race between Republican George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb. Some voters reported they got calls telling them to stay home on Election Day, or face criminal charges.

The liberal voter group MoveOn offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to a conviction for voter interference, a federal crime.

In Indiana, the FBI was investigating allegations that a Democratic volunteer at a polling site in the college town of Bloomington was found with absentee ballots after counting had begun.

In Arizona, three men, one of them armed, stopped Hispanic voters and questioned them outside a Tucson polling place, according to voting monitors for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which photographed the incidents and reported them to the FBI.

In Maryland, sample ballots suggesting Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich and Senate candidate Michael Steele were Democrats were handed out by people bused in from out of state. Democrats outnumber Republicans in Maryland by nearly 2-to-1.

An Ehrlich spokeswoman said the fliers were meant to show the candidates had the support of some state Democrats. They were paid for by the campaigns of Ehrlich, Steel and the GOP. Some of the fliers include pictures of Ehrlich with Democrat Kweisi Mfume, a former NAACP president.

Across the country, Democrats accused Republicans of sponsoring automated "robo-calls" that have infuriated voters. The recorded calls, which reached a fever pitch in the days leading up to the election, automatically dial and re-redial, promoting or trashing a candidate.

Republicans have denied responsibility.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.