
Posted at 4:41 PM ET by Steve Coogan
Voting problems have cropped up all over the country. Most notably, voters in the Denver area have been held up since the polls opened at 7 a.m. Computer problems at the voter check-in stations bogged down [the process], creating a bottleneck in the first hour of voting as a rush to the polls overloaded the system," the Denver Post reported. Democratic Party leaders were seeking a two-hour extension of voting in the area. Power failures in some locations have also created delays. In addition, an AP story cites a spokeswoman for the secretary of state who says the 14 proposals on this year's ballot are helping to cause the congestion.
Tennessee's Democratic Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. said that voting stations in Memphis and Jackson were shut down when he went to polls this morning. "We've already leveled one [challenge] on behalf of voters who have been told they'd have to wait until later today to vote," Ford said.
Unfortunately, the problems don't end there. Local reports in Pennsylvania and Ohio, also states with influential Senate elections, experienced some glitches.
In Chicago, NBC's affiliate has posted an online page where citizens can vent about the various problems they've had trying to get out to the polls. About her polling station, which apparently had a malfunctioning computer, one reader wrote:
"It is a sad state of affairs when we spend MILLIONS of dollars on these fiascos in the 21st century. The computer programmers at the place where I work could write a good, reliable, and CORRECTLY FUNCTIONING program in their SLEEP."
Finally, local coverage reported some early voting problems in Broward County, Fla., a state that doesn't need any more bad voting publicity after the 2000 debacle. But overall, it appears all is well in that state.