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Election Latest: Isolated Glitches Force Polls to Stay Open Late

Pennsylvania voters who forgot to put a date on their mail ballots are working to fix the issue on Election Day after a court ordered their votes could be discarded.

Sean Patrick Maloney during a rally in Nyack, New York.
Sean Patrick Maloney during a rally in Nyack, New York.

Problems with voting machines and systems were sporadic as millions of Americans went to the polls, although glitches in some places, including Arizona’s largest county, produced unsubstantiated claims of fraud from some Republicans.

By 7 p.m. eastern time, polls had closed in states including Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Indiana and Vermont, as voters cast ballots to determine control of the House and Senate -- and the fate of President Joe Biden’s agenda. Officials were on the lookout for disruptions and violence in the first big election since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Candidates who deny the validity of the 2020 election are on the ballot across the country, many for roles that will oversee future elections. 

It could be days before we know who took control of Congress, pollster Frank Luntz says on Bloomberg TV’s ‘Balance of Power.’Source: Bloomberg
It could be days before we know who took control of Congress, pollster Frank Luntz says on Bloomberg TV’s ‘Balance of Power.’Source: Bloomberg

Key stories and developments:

  • Election Deniers Air Baseless Fraud Claims Over Arizona Glitch
  • Americans on Election Day Set to Deliver Early Verdict on Biden
  • US Economy on Election Day: Where It Stands and What It Means
  • Here Are the Most Consequential State and Local Ballot Measures

(All times are US Eastern Standard)

Houston Polling Places Ordered to Stay Open Late (7:21 p.m.)

Polling places in Texas’s largest county have been ordered to stay open until 9 p.m. eastern time, an hour later than usual, after technical malfunctions delayed voting.

The Harris County Democratic and Republican parties tweeted the decision after a late-afternoon court hearing.

Houston Polling Stations Are Running Out of Paper (5:55 p.m.)

Some polling places in the Houston metro area are running out of paper, forcing officials to halt voting until replenishments arrive.

It was unclear how many polling stations were affected across Harris County, Texas, elections spokeswoman Jill Shah said in an interview.

Harris County’s system requires individuals to cast their votes on a computer that prints out the results and then are fed into another machine for storage. After the polls close, the computer drives will be transported to a central counting facility for tabulation.

Georgia Poll Workers Fired Over Social Media Posts (4:57 p.m.)

Two Fulton County poll workers in Johns Creek, Georgia, outside of Atlanta, were fired after concerns were raised about questionable social media posts, the county said Tuesday.

The county’s elections office shared the concerns with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, which oversees elections statewide, and the decision was made to terminate the workers, Fulton County said in a statement. “This decision is in alignment with our commitment to elections integrity,” the statement said. Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez, spokeswoman for the county, declined to comment further.

A spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office said the decision was made by the county.

Paper Shortage Spurs Extended Voting in Pennsylvania County (4:42 p.m.) 

Voting stations will be open until 10 p.m. Tuesday in Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County in the northeastern portion of the commonwealth, which includes Wilkes-Barre. The extension doesn’t include mail-in ballots or drop-box locations, according to a statement on the county’s website.

The extension was sought by party leaders and approved by a judge due to a shortage of paper ballots that kept voters from voting earlier in the day, according to WNEP TV.

Time Change Glitch Delays Vote in Suburban Houston (4 p.m.)

Voting was delayed at about a dozen polling stations in Houston’s largest suburban county when some laptops used to verify voters failed because of the last weekend’s switch back to Standard Time. 

The computers used by Fort Bend County, Texas, officials didn’t operate properly because of a synchronization error related to the time change, John Oldham, the county’s elections administrator, said in an interview.

Despite the snags, as of early afternoon, voter turnout already was almost 20% ahead of the 2020 presidential election, he said. 

North Carolina Extends Voting in Three Locations (3:30 p.m.)

North Carolina’s State Board of Elections extended voting for one hour in three polling stations that experienced technical difficulties earlier in the day, which prevented a few dozen voters from casting ballots. 

As a result, those counties won’t be able to report election results — including those from early voting — until 8:30 PM this evening. So far, there are no reports of voter harassment or intimidation, according to state board of elections spokesperson Patrick Gannon.

More than 2.1 million North Carolina voters participated in early voting, an increase of 13% from the last midterm election in 2018.  

Election officials in North Carolina can begin counting early ballots on Tuesday afternoon, so the first results reported after polls close this evening will be from that batch. Those votes are more likely to be for Democrats than Republicans, making early results unclear. 

Two Georgia Precincts to Remain Open Late (2:33 p.m.)

Two Cobb County, Georgia, precincts north of Atlanta are being kept open beyond 7 p.m. ET Tuesday because of delays in opening for voters earlier in the day.

The delays prompted requests to a Superior Court judge, who agreed to sign orders extending the hour of voting at a Kennesaw precinct to 7:45 p.m. and a precinct in the Oregon neighborhood to 7:06 p.m.

On Monday, in the same county, another Superior Court judge ordered as many as 1,000 absentee ballots that had been requested -- but never sent out -- to be sent by overnight mail. Any eligible voter who hadn’t received an absentee ballot and hadn’t yet voted may still do so Tuesday.

Biden Calls Some Democratic Allies on Election Day (2:25 p.m.)

President Biden had no public events planned on election day and was expected to watch the results come in with advisers.

But the president did work the phones, calling Democratic allies including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Governors Association Chair Roy Cooper, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Sean Patrick Maloney and Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, according to the White House. 

President Joe Biden, speaking on the eve of the midterm elections, said Democrats face a “tougher” challenge holding the House than the US Senate. Source: Bloomberg
President Joe Biden, speaking on the eve of the midterm elections, said Democrats face a “tougher” challenge holding the House than the US Senate. Source: Bloomberg

Illinois County Sees an Ongoing Cyber Attack (2:00 p.m.)

An Illinois county clerk describes a cyberattack against its computer systems as a “strategic and coordinated effort” to undermine the democratic process.

The Champaign County Clerk’s Office said Tuesday it’s aware of unspecified “connectivity issues,” adding that for the past month its website has been the target of repeated distributed denial-of-service attacks. Those are when malicious actors try to bombard a site to bring it down.

The county said in a Facebook post that no data or information has been compromised and said the election was secure. The clerk’s website appeared online early Tuesday afternoon.

Houston Plagued by Voting-Machine Outages (2:05 p.m.)

Voting-machine outages across Harris County, Texas, caused long lines and delays in the country’s third-largest county.

The county’s top election official, Clifford Tatum, didn’t disclose how widespread the outages were or how many had been rectified. He noted that Harris County -- home to Houston -- has the longest ballot in the nation, with as many as 103 races in some precincts.

Community activist Tamaro Bell confronted Tatum after he toured one of the county’s biggest polling stations, saying some frustrated people had to leave without casting votes because of the outages. In response, Tatum said anyone who is in line when polls close at 7 p.m. local time will still be allowed to vote.

Tatum took over as elections administrator after the March primary debacle in which it took 30 hours to count the votes, prompting his predecessor to resign.

Michigan Governor Lauds Turnout Driven by Abortion Measure (1:50 p.m.)

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic incumbent running against Trump-endorsed challenger Tudor Dixon, said she was buoyed by strong turnout that she said was spurred by a referendum that would codify legal abortion in the state’s constitution.

At a rally, Whitmer said if the abortion proposal passes, the governor and state legislature can have a role in regulating it but that the state constitution would be the final say.

“I do think that’s the best way to codify these rights that we’ve had for 49 years,” Whitmer said. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there trying to scare people that it goes beyond that. It doesn’t. The same restrictions about parental consent will be in effect, but we have to enshrine this into the constitution.”

Georgia Voting Is Nearing Records (1:40 p.m.)

Georgians are heading toward setting record state voting totals for a midterm, non-presidential year election, with contests for governor and a US Senate seat pivotal for party control of that chamber on the line.

About 2 million voters are expected to cast their ballots on Tuesday. That’s in addition to more than 2.28 million voters who’ve already voted across the state -- a new high for early voting in mid-term elections, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.

In the previous midterm election, in 2018, 1.8 million Georgians cast early ballots, with a total 3.9 eventually voting. In 2020, the most recent presidential election year, about 4.9 million Georgia voted, with 2.6 million of them being early voters.

Bomb Threat Closes a Louisiana Polling Place (1:25 p.m.)

A school that was being used as a polling location received a bomb threat in Kenner, Louisiana, according to the Kenner Police Department, forcing voters to move to a new location. 

According to local news reports, the building was evacuated and voting was set up in a nearby elementary school. 

Police are investigating and trying to determine whether Tuesday’s threat was directed at voting or if it is related to another threat made at the school last week.

House Democratic Campaign Head Frets About His Own Seat (1:08 p.m.)

US Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, who led the Democratic Party’s efforts to retain control of Congress, voted on Tuesday morning with his husband in Cold Spring, New York, in what’s turned into a tighter-than-expected race in the Hudson Valley. 

Maloney has railed against what he called the “MAGA money” that was pumped into the race in an effort to oust the 56-year-old chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and send a symbolic message to the Democratic party.

“Without that, this would not be a race you’re talking about,” he said. 

Sean Patrick Maloney during a rally in Nyack, New York.Photographer: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Sean Patrick Maloney during a rally in Nyack, New York.Photographer: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Republican Mike Lawler, Maloney’s opponent in the 17th Congressional District, voted in Pearl River, New York, on Tuesday along with his 6-month-old daughter and wife, who he said became a US citizen two years ago.

Trump Votes in New Home State of Florida (12:40 p.m.)

Former President Donald Trump was filmed heading in to vote alongside his wife Melania Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, near his residence at his Mar-a-Lago club. 

“The country has lost its way, lost its confidence, it’s gotten very bad,” he told reporters.

At a rally ostensibly for Republican US Senate candidate JD Vance in Dayton, Ohio, on Monday, Trump came the closest he has to announcing he will run again for president in 2024, promising a “very big announcement” next Tuesday.

Florida Turns Away Federal Election Monitors (12:20 p.m.)

The Republican-led state of Florida has rejected the Department of Justice’s effort to send election monitors to three polling jurisdictions in the state, calling it an unnecessary “federal intrusion.”

Florida joins Missouri in rejecting DOJ personnel. The department announced on Monday that it planned to send monitors to the Florida counties of Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach. The rebuff of federal monitors was annouced by the office of the Florida secretary of state, an appointee of GOP Governor Ron DeSantis.

“None of the counties are currently subject to any election-related federal consent decrees,” the Secretary of State’s office said in a letter to DOJ. “None of the counties have been accused of violating the rights of language or racial minorities or of the elderly or the disabled.”

Technical Issues Hit Arizona’s Biggest County (12:15 p.m.)

In Arizona’s Maricopa County, elections officials have flagged issues with tabulators in about 20% of polling locations. If the tabulator doesn’t read a ballot, voters can “insert their ballot in the secure slot on the ballot box where it will be counted at the Tabulation and Election Center,” the county elections office said in a statement.

Those ballots will be centrally tabulated later this evening, officials said, similar to how the country handles early voting -- but without the need to further confirm identification, because ballots dropped at polling places today are already effectively signature-verified, officials said.

“Technical staff are working to resolve an issue with tabulators and investigating the cause,” the statement said.

Voting Machines Fail in a New Jersey County (11:20 a.m.)

All voting machines in Mercer County, New Jersey, were inoperable as of 7:47 a.m. Eastern time, according to a community alert post on the Nixle public-safety website from Gay Huber, Weat Windsor Township clerk.

Tom Szymanski, executive director of the New Jersey Republican State Committee, said voters could expect to insert paper ballots into the machines.

“Ballots that enter the machine unscanned will be preserved through a chain of custody and counted at the Board of Elections at a later time,” Szymanski said in a statement.

No Long Lines as Georgia Chooses Governor, Senator (11:15 a.m.)

Lines for in-person voting in Georgia ranged from none to no more than 12 minutes, and just 6 minutes in metro Atlanta counties, according to Gabriel Sterling, interim deputy secretary of state.

“It’s a steady turnout around the state,” he said. “The average wait time is 2 minutes statewide. Most places don’t have any lines at all.”

The state has two closely watched races on the ballot. Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock is facing a stiff challenge from former football star Herschel Walker while Republican incumbent Governor Brian Kemp looks likely to survive a rematch bid from Democrat Stacey Abrams. 

Nevada Senator Rallies Union Workers on Election Day (11:00 a.m.)

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto rallied with other Democratic state officials joined by members of Culinary Workers Union 226, a group of more than 60,000 casino, restaurant and hotel workers, at a 6 a.m. rally in Las Vegas ahead of a last-minute canvassing effort. 

The senator is in a close race for reelection against Republican Adam Laxalt. 

Cortez Masto, the only Latina in the US Senate, was welcomed with a standing ovation by the friendly labor crowd. “I am so excited to be here,” she said. “Mis hermanos y mis hermanas, (brothers and sisters) when we are united we are stronger. It is the workers here that make this an incredible city. Tu voto es tu voz. (Your vote is your voice.)”

Fetterman Votes in Pennsylvania’s Tight Senate Contest (10:45 a.m.)

Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman cast his ballot at New Hope Church in Braddock, Pennsylvania. 

Dressed in his signature hoodie sweatshirt and shorts, Fetterman walked out of the church with his wife Giselle, who greeted reporters and said, “I voted for that guy.” 

Fetterman served as mayor of Braddock from 2006 to 2019. 

Watch: Oz, Fetterman in a tight race in Pennsylvania.Source: Bloomberg
Watch: Oz, Fetterman in a tight race in Pennsylvania.Source: Bloomberg

US Officials On the Lookout for Cyber Threats (10:20 a.m.)

A senior official with the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency told reporters on Tuesday it wasn’t seeing specific or credible threats to disrupt election infrastructure, adding that the agency has “high confidence” in the security of the elections.

But the official added it had seen more countries willing to try to influence operations in US elections, citing Russia in 2016, Iran in 2020 and China in 2022.

CISA, which has set up an Election Day operations center at its headquarters, will provide two additional updates on election security during the day. 

Pennsylvanians Rush to Fix Undated Ballots (10 a.m.)

Pennsylvania voters who forgot to put a date on their mail ballots are rushing to fix the issue on Election Day after the state Supreme Court ruled last Tuesday that undated ballots wouldn’t be counted.

A coalition of voting rights groups is challenging the decision in federal court, but in the meantime, officials in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh released the names of voters whose ballots would be discarded.

Elections expert David Levine with the Alliance for Securing Democracy said it’s unclear whether other local officials are also doing outreach to voters at risk of having their ballots thrown out for not having a date, but he said that rural officials typically don’t have the staff or resources available for last-minute outreach.

Early Voting Proves Popular (9:15 a.m.)

More than 44.2 million people voted before Election Day in the 2022 midterms, outpacing the last comparable election, according to data compiled by the US Elections Project at the University of Florida.

By comparison, in 2018, about 39.1 million people voted before Election Day, in person or by mail, in the midterms. But a number of states expanded early voting and vote-by-mail as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, which makes a direct comparison impossible.

Elections experts say it’s unclear whether the high rate of early voting is a sign of greater-than-usual voter enthusiasm, or if more people have simply switched to early voting instead of casting their ballot on Election Day.

Dr. Oz Heads to the Polls (8:45 a.m.)

Mehmet Oz, the Republican candidate for Senate from Pennsylvania voted with his wife near their home in Huntingdon Valley. 

The Trump-backed former TV doctor told a crowd he was going to work for bipartisanship if he wins his tight race against Democratic rival John Fetterman. 

“We want less radicalism and more balance,” he said. 

Razor-Thin Margins Turn Eyes to Arizona (8:30 a.m.)

Officials put orange-and-white plastic jersey barriers around the Maricopa County Elections Department headquarters in Phoenix, a center of pro-Trump protests after the 2020 election, before polling places opened there. 

A spokeswoman for the county said the barriers were for additional protection and there’s no timeline for when they will be taken down.

As of Sunday, some 1.5 million votes had been cast early in the state, almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, according to data compiled by the US Elections Project at the University of Florida. The state’s races for US Senate, governor and secretary of state are all very close. 

Voters Are ... Voting (6:30 a.m.) 

Polls have opened in Connecticut, Virginia, New York, Maine, New Jersey, North Carolina, West Virginia and Ohio, and will open in many more states in the coming hour. Some of these early voting states have races to watch. 

Virginia, where polls close at 7 p.m. and votes are counted quickly, may offer signals of the national mood. Abortion and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol remain key issues in Representative Elaine Luria’s bid for reelection against Republican Jen Kiggans.  

And in New York, Governor Kathy Hochul faces a tighter-than-expected race for reelection against Republican Lee Zeldin. 

Braced for Impact (6:00 a.m.)

Election officials are preparing for disruptions and potential violence at polling places around the country. 

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said recently that she expects the Huntington Place convention center in Detroit to be a hub of post-election protests.

She said the convention center is under new management since 2020 and that the new owners are requiring anyone going inside to have credentials. That includes election observers, but only those who have been approved, not just anyone who shows up.

Canton, Michigan, is also requiring security badges for access. Clerk Michael Siegrist has been studying the manuals of third-party groups alleging massive fraud in 2020 so he and his staff can address misinformation when it comes up in volunteer training or on Election Day. He’s also been teaching deescalation tactics, and has launched a social-media campaign called “Faces of Canton Elections” to try to “build civic discourse,” he said.

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(A previous version of this story was corrected because it left out a letter in ‘Florida’ in a headline)

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