Tim Mock stood in line for 3½ hours Tuesday at Rice Creek Elementary School in Northeast Richland to vote, and it didn’t leave him happy.

“I’ve heard that it was because of (high voter) turnout,” Mock said. “But it was evident they weren’t ready for the amount of people in that area.”

Mock’s experience wasn’t an isolated one across the Midlands, as many voters waited in line for hours.

Others said they were still in line at 9 p.m., two hours after polls closed.

State law requires one machine for every 250 registered voters.

Richland County officials acknowledge they exceeded the state’s limit in some precincts Tuesday, but could not say Wednesday how often that had occurred.

Officials point to the large number of people registering to vote this year.

About 200,000 more South Carolinians voted Tuesday than in the 2000 presidential election. That’s about 1.6 million voters, compared with 1.4 million in 2000.

Richland officials estimated 30,000 to 40,000 more people voted this year.

At Mock’s Rice Creek Elementary polling site, 1,000 people registered to vote between July 1 and Oct. 2.

That didn’t allow enough time to program voting machines and set up additional polling sites, said Stephany Snowden, Richland County spokeswoman. Various agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, must sign off on new polling sites, she said.

That process usually takes at least six months, Snowden said.

Richland and Lexington counties will review their polling processes. Some Lexington County Council members said the county might look at buying more voting machines, hiring more poll workers or adding new phone lines at the election commission.

Aside from long lines, election officials reported a few other glitches.

“Most of the complaints from this year involved voters who did not update their addresses prior to election day,” said Garry Baum, spokesman for the state Election Commission.

Lexington County was among 15 counties trying out new touch-screen voting machines. A handful of precincts there reported the new machines had the wrong ballot or did not work properly. Those problems were quickly resolved, said Dean Crepes, director of the county election commission.

By November 2006, the new voting machines will be used in all S.C. precincts, according to the state Election Commission. The state also hopes to have one machine for every 200 registered voters.

Another ballot glitch in Northeast Richland left some questioning the results for the Richland 2 school board race, where a recount is under way. Candidates for the third open seat are separated by fewer than 100 votes.

Voter Charles Hucks waited in line for three hours only to be wrongly told he was slated to vote in the Richland 1 races. He reported the matter to the county election commission.

Hucks said he worried some people wouldn’t have paid close enough attention to notice an error.

“I don’t know how accurate those results are, given that they had me registered in the wrong district,” Hucks said.

Staff writers Maurice Thomas and Ellyde Roko contributed to this report. Reach Smith at (803) 771-8378 or gnsmith@thestate.com.