Long lines, new electronic machines fail to deter voters

Voter turnout at Taylors Elementary on Reid School Road was heavy starting at 7 a.m. when the doors opened. Staff/Ken Osburn e-mail this story Related Related stories: • Today's your chance to change the future Photo gallery • Election Day photos

Things went smoothly for many Upstate voters Tuesday. For others, it was a nightmare.

Alphabet lottery (what letter does your last name begin with?) determining whether you stand in line for 15 minutes or an hour.

State-of-the-art computerized voting machines in the counties that had them standing idle while scores of voters stand in line all because the new devices aren't plugged up properly.

While some voters said they breezed in and out of polling places in just minutes, and many said they easily navigated new electronic voting machines, others described waiting hours only to be told they had to go elsewhere.

Lines at some polling places snaked down hallways, out doors and into parking lots where voters stood in a steady drizzle determined to have a say in the outcome of national, state and local races.

Tuesday morning, some voters in Laurens County faced long lines to cast their votes, though the wait wasn't much more than five to 10 minutes in most places. Other places, including Ward 5 that votes at the Laurens County Library, had a little longer waits with lines that sometimes stretched almost to the front doors.

At the Laurens Family YMCA at 9:30 a.m. there had been 239 voters. By 5:05 p.m., 735 people had voted.

Laurens County election officials had expected a large turnout, pushed primarily by the hotly contested Presidential and U.S. Senate races, and locally by two countywide contests the three-way race for sheriff and state Senate District 9 rematch between incumbent Republican Danny Verdin and the man he ousted, Democrat Jim Bryan.

In Greenville County, there was the last-minute scrambling of the voting precincts changing the polling place for more than 100,000 voters. Many of them were turned away and sent to stand in long lines at County Square.

"There was a lot of balls dropped," said Pam Forrest of Simpsonville, who waited 45 minutes at her precinct and another 2 hours at County Square because her husband's registration card didn't arrive in the mail. "If I'd gotten up here and they said he couldn't vote katy-bar the door."

Others, like Sherry Nimmo, were turned away from the polls because of polling place snafus. She said her brand new registration card said to vote at Berea Middle. When she got there, a sign informed her she should go to Mt. Sinai Baptist Church. After waiting in line 2 hours she was told she needed to go to a county office.

"It was aggravating as all get out," she said.