Local turnout high; city sees machine glitch

Neither long lines, nor a drizzling rain nor overcast sky nor even a computer glitch kept voters away from appointed polling places.

An estimated 69.57 percent of Charlottesville registered voters cast ballots Tuesday, about 3 percent more than the last presidential election. Forty percent of registered voters had cast their ballots by 1 p.m., city officials said. In Albemarle County, 76 percent of registered voters turned out. Half of Albemarle’s registered voters made their choices by 1 p.m., but final totals were not available by press time.

“We processed 1,979.5 voters per hour between 6 a.m. and 1 p.m.,” said Rick Sincere, chairman of the Charlottesville Electoral Board. “It’s been very busy.”

Tuesday began with as many as 400 to 500 people lined up outside precinct polling places at 6 a.m., waiting to vote.

“We had a line that extended out about 500 yards outside of the door and down the street,” said Norm Taylor, an election official at the Walker Upper Elementary School precinct in Charlottesville. “It stayed that way for pretty much the first hour: We had about 425 voters in that time.”

Taylor, who has worked the polls for 13 years, said the turnout is the best he’s ever seen.

“It’s been great. The voters have been easy-going, even when we had a few problems,” he said.

Those problems came in the first half-hour when the city’s electronic voting machines suffered a temporary malfunction in some precincts.

“It only took about 20 or 30 minutes before they were up and running and they worked fine after that, but the trouble came at a pretty tough time, in that first hour,” Taylor said. “Luckily, we had paper ballots to use as backup and it kept everyone moving. People were very understanding.”

“We were pretty busy putting out the paper ballots,” said poll worker Albert Kohn. “The lines were long and we had our heads down working steady.”

Charlottesville offered voters a choice between the city’s 6-year-old electronic voting machines and new computer-scanned paper ballots. Both machines provide visual copies of a voter’s ballot — the electronic machines produce a PDF document — in case of a recount.

Sincere said city voters seemed to prefer the familiar electronic devices to the paper product.

“It’s running about 2-to-1 with people choosing to vote on the electronic system rather than the paper ballots. At Alumni Hall it’s running about 5-to-1,” he said. “I think it shows that people are comfortable with the electronic voting system, its quality and its accuracy.”

Election volunteers said there were the usual snafus, from updated registrations that had not been forwarded through bureaucracies to changed names that had not been officially noted. Few voters, however, complained about the waits, which were as long as 45 minutes in the morning rush. Evening waits were significantly shorter in most precincts in the city and Albemarle.

Some voters who cast morning ballots credited election officials with making the process smooth.

“I really expected it to take a long time but it was so organized and it went so smooth,” said Ellen Diming of her experience voting at Albemarle High School. “I didn’t have to stand in line that long at all. They just did a great job.”