WASHINGTON, November 6 (RIA Novosti) – Tens of millions of Americans turned out to vote Tuesday in a presidential election pitting Democratic incumbent Barack Obama against Republican challenger Mitt Romney, encountering long lines and a range of technical problems to cast their ballots in the hotly contested race.
Major US media outlets were expected to begin “calling” the race on a state-by-state basis as polls on the East Coast close Tuesday evening, though many of them said they would take extra precautions to avoid a fiasco like that in the 2000 presidential election, when television networks made numerous mistakes and announced incorrect winners.
With many of the pivotal “battleground” states situated in the eastern half of the country, it was hoped that a winner of the presidential race could become clear sometime around midnight Eastern Standard Time (0500 GMT Wednesday).
But the reported closeness of the race—as well as the potential for vote disruption and procedural violations due to everything from the hurricane that hit the East Coast last week to long lines and confusion about voting rules—means it could take much longer for a clear winner to emerge.
Voters at polling stations throughout the eastern United States on Tuesday complained of myriad problems as they attempted to cast their ballots. Tempers flared over long, snaking lines at polling precincts that forced some voters to spend several hours in line.
Travel agent Mitchell Banks, 53, arrived at an Arlington, Virginia, community center to cast his ballot Tuesday morning but gave up temporarily after waiting three hours. He called the situation “insane.”
“We’re hoping to come back later when the line is smaller,” Banks told RIA Novosti.
Voters on Tuesday complained about faulty electronic voting machines, personnel shortages at polling stations, and mix-ups over voter registries.
“This morning, it was chaos,” Diana Taylor, an election judge working at a polling station in the town of Newton, Connecticut, told USA Today.
“We had trouble with the new electronic system—just trying to find people. If we can’t find people in the electronic system, we look them up in another electronic system and then a paper system.”
Serious disruptions were also reported throughout the states of New York and New Jersey due to the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which ravaged large swathes of the US East Coast last week. Dozens of polling stations had to be moved in New York City due to damage wrought by the storm, Bloomberg reported.
In neighboring New Jersey, meanwhile, Governor Chris Christie has responded to the storm-related obstacles by allowing voters to cast their ballots via email and fax up until 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (0100 GMT Wednesday).
Numerous voters voiced worries, however, that these ballots would not be counted, and there were several reports on mainstream and social media outlets that New Jersey voters’ email ballots had been rejected because the official election inbox was full.
International observers affiliated with the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and various other organizations were positioned across the US to try to keep an eye on the vote despite threats from several state governments to arrest them if they tried to get too close to polling stations.
After voting early Tuesday in his home state of Massachusetts, Romney made a last-second push Tuesday to drum up votes in the key battleground state of Ohio, where he held two campaign events. With its 18 electoral votes, Ohio is widely seen as a crucial state that could determine the winner of the presidential race.
“This is a big day for big change,” Romney told supporters Tuesday afternoon on a campaign stop in the state with his running mate, Paul Ryan. “We’re about to change America, to help people in ways they didn’t imagine they could be helped.”
Obama, meanwhile, spent the day at his home in Chicago, Illinois, where he engaged in his traditional Election Day activity: playing pickup basketball. The incumbent congratulated Romney on a “spirited campaign”
After visiting one of his campaign’s Chicago offices to place phone calls to campaign volunteers in the nearby state of Wisconsin, Obama sounded a note that was one part confidence, one part caution.
“We feel confident we’ve got the votes to win, but it’s going to depend ultimately on whether those votes turn out,” Obama told reporters.
While the two leading presidential candidates spent Election Day in different states, their campaigns had a curious encounter Tuesday morning on an airport tarmac in Cleveland, Ohio.
As Romney waited in his plane at a Cleveland airport for Ryan’s plane to arrive, another plane landed just across the tarmac carrying Obama’s running mate, Vice President Joe Biden, The Washington Post reported.
It was unclear whether Romney noticed the vice president’s arrival in the state for an unannounced campaign event, the newspaper reported. Biden’s motorcade sped off the tarmac, and Ryan’s plane arrived shortly thereafter, according to the report.
US presidents are not chosen by the direct, popular vote but rather by an Electoral College whose 538 members—or “electors”—are determined as a result of the popular vote in each of the 50 states and the nation’s capital, the District of Columbia. Most states use a “winner-take-all” system whereby the winner of the popular vote—even by the narrowest of margins—receives all of that state’s electors. The number of electors is determined by the state’s population.
In addition to the presidential election, US voters were also being asked to express their views on numerous other contests ranging from federal congressional races (33 of the 100 seats in the US Senate are being contested, along with all 435 seats in the House of Representatives) to ballot initiatives in a few states, like whether to legalize marijuana and same-sex marriage.
Turnout is traditionally low in the United States by comparison with other developed democracies. In 2008, for example, just over 60 percent of eligible voters, or around 132 million people, actually cast ballots. In 1996, when former President Bill Clinton was reelected to a second term, turnout was below 50 percent.
