High voter turnout results in long waits

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) In Allen County it hasn't been unusual for voters to have to wait a half hour or longer to finally cast their ballot.

Despite the large turnout, which election officials estimate so far to be at 50 to 55 percent of eligible voters, there haven't been any reports of problems with voting machines.  In the 2008 presidential election, 60 percent of eligible voters went to the polls in Allen County.  When the voting is over 130,000 to 150,000 people will have cast their votes.

"We always like to see a high turnout. The presidential election always provides that. We’ll start processing votes right at 6 p.m.," said Zach Klutz, an Allen County Election Board member.  "We’re pleased with the results, in respect to how the machines are performing. We did have some traffic issues today. Again, a large turnout, the parking lots were packed and we did have to talk to some police officers to assist us with traffic congestion at some of the polling location."

Klutz added the waits in Allen County did not compare to some reported waits in Ohio and Florida.  In those two swing states, some voters had to wait between two and six hours.

Wait times have gone down since the morning, but another rush is expected near the end of the day as the polls are scheduled to close at 6 pm.  

There were 128 polling locations throughout Allen County.

There have been reports of voting problems around the country, but most have just been associated with long lines.

Audit system prevents voters from submitting two ballots

Within 10 days of the election, the election board is required to perform an audit.  The audit will catch anyone who submitted an absentee ballot and also voted on Election Day.

Klutz said voting twice is a felony, but did acknowledge that mistakes and errors do occur.

"We do have audit procedures and functions in place that will allow us to find both votes, and pull the absentee vote so that the voter is only permitted one vote," he said.

The election board creates a polling books four or five days before Election Day.  A book lists all the registered voters at a precinct, and lists the people who voted early.

Then on Election Day, couriers take a list of any additional names of early voters to polling locations for those names to also be crossed off.

Klutz said some people can be overlooked, but it is not a widespread issue.