CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Jammed ballot boxes, a power outage and confusion over polling places were among early Election Day problems reported in Kanawha County, County Clerk Vera McCormick said this afternoon.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Jammed ballot boxes, a power outage and confusion over polling places were among early Election Day problems reported in Kanawha County, County Clerk Vera McCormick said this afternoon.
"It was real hectic, getting the polls set up," McCormick said. Voters may have to wait until after midnight to learn the results in what McCormick predicted will be a heavier than usual election turnout.
"I'm predicting a busy one - 70 to 73 percent turnout, maybe more," she said. "In '04 we had 69.6 percent. I think this is going to be a much, much bigger one than that."
A record 15,925 people - about one in eight of the county's registered voters - already inked their ballots in the early-voting period that ended Saturday. But nearly 100 election workers will still have plenty to do this evening after polls close, McCormick said.
"We've got all these write-ins. We have to look at all those ballots. I think we'll be here late," she said. "It will be after midnight."
After visiting each precinct early today to make sure the polls opened properly, 25 field workers have been out, checking on problems, McCormick said.
At about 11:30 a.m., roughly 1,900 customers lost power near Sissonville Middle School, home of precinct 434, she said: "We sent generators out there so they could stay open." Emergency power was restored in an hour or so.
Elsewhere, "a lot of people called in, wondering where they were supposed to vote." Many calls came from Charleston, where precincts were redistricted before last year's city election. Apparently some voters are still confused.
Rumors that poll workers failed to show up at Carroll Terrace in Charleston, however, proved false, she said. "I don't know where that got started. I heard that and sent out people. There were people standing in line but they opened on time.
"I think at most of our precincts, people were standing in line when they opened."
East End resident Michael Layne went to Carroll Terrace as his second polling place visit of the day. He first went to the Kanawha County Board of Education building, only to learn his polling place had been moved less than a half-mile away.
Layne's experience was typical of the types of problems being reported across the state as hordes of voters flocked to the polls Tuesday: minor and relatively inconsequential.
The day got off to a good start and remained relatively problem-free later in the day with only a few counties reporting glitches that clerks and technicians easily fixed as they arose, said Sarah C. Bailey, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Betty Ireland.
Mason, Webster and Wood counties reported paper jams and isolated voting machine malfunctions early in the day.
Webster County Clerk Terry J. Payne said she and her deputies made predawn runs to 14 precincts to distribute keys to unlock ballot boxes. A dozen opened on time, but two were about 10 minutes behind schedule.
Mason County Clerk Diana N. Cromley said a steady stream of voters started arriving at the polls at 6:30 a.m., leading her to predict a large turnout by the day's end.
Lines were "very, very long everywhere" in Berkeley County in the Eastern Panhandle, but that's to be expected during a presidential election, said Deputy Clerk Denise Hensler.
Some Mountain State voters went to some extraordinary lengths to cast ballots.
A Charles Town woman who gave birth to her seventh child at a Maryland hospital arranged to have a ballot hand-delivered to her in the maternity ward Tuesday afternoon.
A West Virginia soldier stationed in Georgia drove more than 500 miles from Fort Benning to his hometown of Princeton to cast his ballot during early voting, which ended Saturday.
The state set a record for early voting with about 154,000 ballots cast compared with the previous record of 126,500 early votes in 2004.
Tom and Sarah Leonard said they had no wait or problems casting their votes midmorning in Charleston, but were told about 30 people were waiting when the doors opened. Though 45-year-old Sarah Leonard is a Republican and her 55-year-old husband a Democrat, they both cast their votes for Democrat Barack Obama over Republican John McCain in the presidential race.
"They both seem competent, which is not always the case," Tom Leonard said.
"It's not that we thought McCain would do a bad job," Leonard said. "It's just that we thought Obama would do a better job."
Layne, a 54-year-old independent, said he pulled the lever for McCain "as the best of a bad lot" after finding none of his favorites on the ballot: Harrison Ford's James Marshall in "Air Force One," Bill Pullman's Thomas J. Whitmore in "Independence Day" or Martin Sheen's Josiah "Jed" Bartlet in "West Wing."
After all, he said, fictional presidents are always better presidents than real ones.
- From staff, wire reports
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Jammed ballot boxes, a power outage and confusion over polling places were among early Election Day problems reported in Kanawha County, County Clerk Vera McCormick said this afternoon.
"It was real hectic, getting the polls set up," McCormick said. Voters may have to wait until after midnight to learn the results in what McCormick predicted will be a heavier than usual election turnout.
"I'm predicting a busy one - 70 to 73 percent turnout, maybe more," she said. "In '04 we had 69.6 percent. I think this is going to be a much, much bigger one than that."
A record 15,925 people - about one in eight of the county's registered voters - already inked their ballots in the early-voting period that ended Saturday. But nearly 100 election workers will still have plenty to do this evening after polls close, McCormick said.
"We've got all these write-ins. We have to look at all those ballots. I think we'll be here late," she said. "It will be after midnight."
After visiting each precinct early today to make sure the polls opened properly, 25 field workers have been out, checking on problems, McCormick said.
At about 11:30 a.m., roughly 1,900 customers lost power near Sissonville Middle School, home of precinct 434, she said: "We sent generators out there so they could stay open." Emergency power was restored in an hour or so.
Elsewhere, "a lot of people called in, wondering where they were supposed to vote." Many calls came from Charleston, where precincts were redistricted before last year's city election. Apparently some voters are still confused.
Rumors that poll workers failed to show up at Carroll Terrace in Charleston, however, proved false, she said. "I don't know where that got started. I heard that and sent out people. There were people standing in line but they opened on time.
"I think at most of our precincts, people were standing in line when they opened."
East End resident Michael Layne went to Carroll Terrace as his second polling place visit of the day. He first went to the Kanawha County Board of Education building, only to learn his polling place had been moved less than a half-mile away.
Layne's experience was typical of the types of problems being reported across the state as hordes of voters flocked to the polls Tuesday: minor and relatively inconsequential.
The day got off to a good start and remained relatively problem-free later in the day with only a few counties reporting glitches that clerks and technicians easily fixed as they arose, said Sarah C. Bailey, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Betty Ireland.
Mason, Webster and Wood counties reported paper jams and isolated voting machine malfunctions early in the day.
Webster County Clerk Terry J. Payne said she and her deputies made predawn runs to 14 precincts to distribute keys to unlock ballot boxes. A dozen opened on time, but two were about 10 minutes behind schedule.
Mason County Clerk Diana N. Cromley said a steady stream of voters started arriving at the polls at 6:30 a.m., leading her to predict a large turnout by the day's end.
Lines were "very, very long everywhere" in Berkeley County in the Eastern Panhandle, but that's to be expected during a presidential election, said Deputy Clerk Denise Hensler.
Some Mountain State voters went to some extraordinary lengths to cast ballots.
A Charles Town woman who gave birth to her seventh child at a Maryland hospital arranged to have a ballot hand-delivered to her in the maternity ward Tuesday afternoon.
A West Virginia soldier stationed in Georgia drove more than 500 miles from Fort Benning to his hometown of Princeton to cast his ballot during early voting, which ended Saturday.
The state set a record for early voting with about 154,000 ballots cast compared with the previous record of 126,500 early votes in 2004.
Tom and Sarah Leonard said they had no wait or problems casting their votes midmorning in Charleston, but were told about 30 people were waiting when the doors opened. Though 45-year-old Sarah Leonard is a Republican and her 55-year-old husband a Democrat, they both cast their votes for Democrat Barack Obama over Republican John McCain in the presidential race.
"They both seem competent, which is not always the case," Tom Leonard said.
"It's not that we thought McCain would do a bad job," Leonard said. "It's just that we thought Obama would do a better job."
Layne, a 54-year-old independent, said he pulled the lever for McCain "as the best of a bad lot" after finding none of his favorites on the ballot: Harrison Ford's James Marshall in "Air Force One," Bill Pullman's Thomas J. Whitmore in "Independence Day" or Martin Sheen's Josiah "Jed" Bartlet in "West Wing."
After all, he said, fictional presidents are always better presidents than real ones.
- From staff, wire reports
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