Long Lines at Polling Places as Displaced Residents Find Ways to Vote
Long Lines at Polling Places as Displaced Residents Find Ways to Vote
People whose lives were upended by Hurricane Sandy joined other voters on Tuesday to cast ballots after elected officials in New York and New Jersey scrambled to relocate scores of polling places that had become unusable because of power failures, flooding or evacuations.
Though the region hit by Hurricane Sandy is not expected to be in play in the presidential election, the combination of the storm and heavy morning turnout yielded long lines, confusion, frustration and anger. At several polling sites in New York City the vote scanning machines being used for the first time in a presidential election malfunctioned, forcing workers to resort to paper ballots and slowing the process even more.
Randy Harter, 66, an artist and designer, voted in New Rochelle, in Westchester County, where his frustration at what he described as an incompetent government response to the storm had transformed into frustration with his voting experience.
When Mr. Harter asked an election worker for help to fill out a paper ballot he had never seen before, he was told: “Just fill it out.” When his ballot was inserted, the machine jammed. A second machine also jammed. He eventually was given an envelope in which to place a ballot that would be hand-counted. The entire voting experience took 45 minutes, Mr. Harter said.