A Talking Points Memo reader has just checked in with anecdotal evidence about voting problems in Ohio. The reader says she and her husband were in line to vote at their Summit County precinct when the polls opened at 6:30 a.m. "Unfortunately, the optical scanner wouldn't accept any ballots," the reader writes. "I hung around until 7:30 a.m. to see if they got it working, and when I left it was still down." The result, she said: Would-be voters were lined up out the door and into a parking lot, where a light drizzle -- and impending start times at work -- might lead some to give up before voting.
An Associated Press report suggests that such problems aren't going to be isolated today. The AP says voting machines "began wreaking havoc the minute the polls opened" today, slowing the voting in Ohio and Indiana and forcing some Florida precincts to give up on the machines in favor of paper ballots.
In Delaware County, Ind., the AP says officials will ask the courts to extend voting tonight because a computer error has already prevented voters from voting in 75 precincts. A local election official tells AP that the cards that were supposed to have activated the machines weren't programmed properly.
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