Election day was tainted by complaints of dirty tricks that led to FBI investigations in at least two states, with some voters reporting intimidating phone calls, misleading sample ballots and even an armed man outside a polling place.
Nonetheless, poll watchers said voting across America went relatively well on Tuesday, despite machine malfunctions and long waits in some states.
"For 7,800 jurisdictions in this country, it looked like things came out pretty cotton-pickin' well," said Doug Lewis, executive director of Election Center, an nonpartisan organization of state election officials. "There were some problems, in some states, but overall it looks like all the predictions of disaster turned out wrong."
PHOTO: AP/THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
As polls closed nationwide, one of the worst waits appeared to be in Denver, where hundreds waited long past sunset at besieged polling centers. They continued to wait, 90 minutes after the 7pm close of voting. It was a miserable end to a day fraught with new voting machine problems and the longest statewide ballot in decades.
"This is positively ridiculous," said Jack McCroskey, who leaned on a cane while waiting to vote. "At 82, I don't deserve to have to stand out here."
Voter intimidation accusations prompted others to claim that some voters were bullied from getting a chance to vote.
In Virginia, the FBI was looking at complaints of an apparently orchestrated series of phone calls in the hard-fought US Senate race between Republican George Allen and Democrat Jim Webb. Some voters reported they got calls telling them to stay home on Election Day, or face criminal charges.
The liberal voter group MoveOn.org offered a US$250,000 reward for information leading to a conviction for voter interference, which is a federal crime.
In Indiana, the FBI was investigating allegations that a Democratic volunteer at a polling site in the college town of Bloomington was found with absentee ballots after counting had begun.
Even some politicians, and their offspring, got turned away from the polls.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters at a campaign stop near her suburban New York home that her daughter, Chelsea, had been turned away at a Manhattan polling site because her name did not appear in a book of registered voters. She was offered an affidavit vote, similar to provisional ballots used in other states.
In South Carolina, Governor Mark Sanford was turned away because he did not have a voter registration card. He went back with the right identification.
States were reporting a variety of problems at the polls.
In Arizona, three men, one of them armed, stopped Hispanic voters and questioned them outside a Tucson polling place, according to voting monitors for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which photographed the incidents and reported them to the FBI.
In Maryland, sample ballots suggesting Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich and Senate candidate Michael Steele were Democrats were handed out by people bused in from out of state. Democrats outnumber Republicans in Maryland by nearly two-to-one.
An Ehrlich spokeswoman said the fliers were meant to show the candidates had the support of some state Democrats. They were paid for by the campaigns of Ehrlich, Steele and the Republican Party. Some of the fliers include pictures of Ehrlich with Democrat Kweisi Mfume, a former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
More than 80 percent of the nation's voters were expected to cast some type of electronic ballot on Tuesday, which was the deadline for major reforms mandated by the federal Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress to prevent a rerun of the 2000 election debacle.
In some states, the effort to improve the integrity of the election system got off to a shaky start. Long lines formed, prompting appeals to judges to keep the polls open longer.
Computer glitches and poll workers' unfamiliarity with the new equipment were also blamed for long lines in states including Ohio, Tennessee, South Carolina and Illinois.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in