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CINCINNATI - Late poll openings and malfunctions with some new electronic voting machines hampered balloting today in US congressional elections, and even some lawmakers encountered problems.
Election officials and experts reported machine malfunctions in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas, but they said many
of the problems were minor and temporary.
An estimated 10,000 lawyers working for the Republican and Democratic parties were standing by across the country to intervene if problems arise, while the US Justice Department dispatched more than 850 observers to 22 states.
Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt, one of many Republicans who could lose her seat because of voter anger over the war in Iraq, was among the first in line to vote at 6.30am but her paper ballot was rejected by the machine at her suburban polling station. Election officials put it aside to be counted later.
"The scanner machine would not accept it for some odd reason," said Schmidt spokesman Matt Perin. "My personal guess is the machine was just warming up," he said.
Cincinnati's other Republican incumbent, Rep. Steve Chabot, also hit a snag, in a new Ohio law requiring voters to show identification before casting a ballot.
Chabot's drivers license listed his business address. He fetched a bank statement to confirm the home address listed on the voter registry.
Elsewhere, touch-screen systems in Florida, Texas, New Jersey and Georgia recorded votes for one candidate when voters selected another, said several election-monitoring groups.
Republicans in New Jersey said some voting machines had been preset to select Robert Menendez, the Democratic senate candidate, and would not record a vote for Tom Kean, his Republican challenger.
VoteTrustUSA, a network of state election-monitoring groups, also said they had received complaints about machines in New Jersey turning Republican votes into Democratic votes.
Complaints from Florida said the machines were flipping Democratic votes to the Republican column, said VoteTrustUSA spokeswoman Susan Greenhalgh.
Machines in one Pennsylvania precinct were asking voters if they want to shut down the polling station, Greenhalgh said.
Courts extended voting hours in areas of Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina and Indiana, but rejected a request in Colorado, according to Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law. Requests were pending in Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, Utah, Pennsylvania and Chicago's Cook County, Illinois.
In Virginia, amid a tight US Senate race, officials asked the FBI to look into reports of voter intimidation.
"A call was made to different voters saying 'This is your new voting location,' and it was not the person's voting location. In another case (the caller said): 'If you go to the polls you might be arrested,' things like that," said Valarie Jones, deputy secretary of the board of elections.
Illinois Democrats complained about a last-minute push by Republicans to deluge homes with automated phone calls that appeared designed to confuse voters.
In Florida, where widespread voting problems forced a decisive recount fight in the 2000 presidential election, the secretary of state said only five of its 6,835 voting precincts opened late.
In Texas, the home state of President George W. Bush, Democrats reported problems in 20 Houston precincts.
Former President Bill Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, was forced to cast a provisional ballot after New York election officials could not find her name on the voter lists, the New York Times reported.
- REUTERS
