VELDA CITY, Mo. (AP) — The polls at this small St. Louis suburb were set to close at 7 p.m. Tuesday, but with hundreds of voters in line after waits that for some topped six hours, few were ready to leave.
Election officials anticipated a record turnout as high as 85 percent in St. Louis County, and close to 80 percent statewide.
At Velda City Hall just three touch screen voting machines and two paper ballot machines with privacy booths were set aside for nearly 1,200 registered voters.
“They were just unprepared,” said Inez Ross, an attorney with a voting rights advocacy group summoned to the crowded polling spot Tuesday afternoon.
By nightfall, the county Board of Elections opened six more privacy booths at the Velda City precinct, reducing a wait that by some estimates neared seven hours to half of that time.
Rather than get upset over the wait, voters in the predominantly black community took the wait in stride — aided by hot dogs, free drinks, a troupe of jugglers and a jazz combo brought in by both Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign and a pro-Obama advocacy group to help ease the discomfort.
“I haven’t seen anyone leave,” said Randy McCorkle, 19, a hospital worker voting for the first time.
In Kansas City, a mix-up with voter registration books led to early morning delays of up to two hours. And across the state, voters reported receiving fraudulent text messages and “robo-calls” telling Democrats to stay home until Wednesday because of heavy turnout.
Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s office forwarded the messages to the U.S. attorney’s office for further investigation.
Laura Egerdal, a spokeswoman for Carnahan, said the messages had the potential to “do some real damage” among first-time voters.
“Confusion helps no one on election day,” she said. “Every eligible voter should be able to cast their ballot without this kind of intimidation.”
In St. Louis, aside from long lines and a temporary pen shortage, provisional ballots were being overused, a voter advocacy group said.
Denise Lieberman, a lawyer with the Advancement Project, said Tuesday night that because of the crowds, too often poll workers were not calling the election board to check the status of a voter whose name didn’t appear on the roster.
By law, they’re supposed to call election headquarters check such names in a database of city voters, then direct people to the correct polling place.
St. Charles County Elections Director Rich Chrismer said he had received complaints from eight precincts about Obama volunteers at polling places. “They’re being disruptive, to say the least,” he said.
He said some volunteers told people they were the election authority. He said they shouldn’t have been asking to see voter registration cards or guiding people about how to prepare to go inside to the polls. There was no indication anyone was kept from voting, he said.
Long waits also didn’t deter voters who gathered before dawn to make sure they could vote as soon as the polls opened at 6 a.m.
In Kansas City, about 500 people were lined up at the St. James Methodist Church near downtown when the polls opened, and another 500 or so stood in line outside University Academy High School when polls opened there.
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