Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Voters report sporadic problems
Some precincts had malfunctions of voting machines, while many coped with long lines.
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Voters
- Virginia takes another step leftward
- Throughout Election Day, voters streamed to the polls
- First-time voters revel in democratic process
- Shuttles help get Tech students to polls
- Voters report sporadic problems
Individual races
- Presidential race: Jim Crow to Obama in one lifetime
- 5th District, U.S. House: 5th District race remains too close to call
- 6th District, U.S. House: Goodlatte cruises to win in contested House bid
- U.S. Senate: Warner enjoys overwhelming win
Apart from some isolated voting machine malfunctions, the biggest problem Roanoke Valley voters had to contend with Tuesday was long lines at the polls.
Precincts in several jurisdictions, including Botetourt and Roanoke counties, had to resort to paper ballots after the electronic voting machines inexplicably went dark. And in Roanoke, some voters were presented a computer screen that showed only the presidential candidates, with the races for the U.S. Senate and House missing.
"It did happen," said city Registrar Beryl Brooks, who attributed the problem to poll worker error. "It was not widespread."
Poll watchers were out in force but reported few problems.
"In all honesty, this thing was pretty clean from what I observed today," said Adam Boitnott, who as chairman of the Roanoke City Republican Committee coordinated poll watching efforts for his party. The most disconcerting report, he said, was from a poll watcher who saw an election worker take a voting machine to a voter's home so the person could vote.
In the city, there was only a handful of provisional ballots, which are used when there's a question about a voter's eligibility that cannot be resolved at the polls.
Statewide, a coalition of voting rights groups said it fielded more than 200 complaints about long lines, malfunctioning equipment and reports of voter intimidation. Most of the reports came from the Richmond, Tidewater and Northern Virginia areas.
But by late afternoon, officials said during a teleconference with reporters, none of the problems was serious enough to require litigation.
