NEW YORK, 7 February 2008 — The biggest-ever Super Tuesday presidential primary contest in American history caused extraordinary voter interest, but apparently no major problems.
Precincts across the country reported record turnout Tuesday as 24 states held primaries and caucuses, with voters braving deadly tornadoes in the South, snow in Kansas and arctic temperatures in Alaska.
“There is just an extraordinary amount of interest in this election, and in who will be in the White House,” said Doug Chapin, director of watchdog organization electionline.org. “Election officials know that the level of turnout is rising, but I think they’re really surprised at how high that level of turnout is.”
So great was the desire to be part of a record-number of primaries and caucuses, some states reported voters showing up at the polls who weren’t eligible. In Arizona, for example, registered Independents showed up in Maricopa County, only to find out that participation required a party affiliation. In California, the opposite happened — nonpartisan voters complained they were wrongly challenged when they tried to vote Democratic.
Florida voters got so caught up in the excitement of Super Tuesday that many tried to cast ballots for the presidential primaries — again. Election officials across the state said they fielded hundreds of phone calls from voters apparently unaware that Florida’s presidential primary was last week.
“We’ve had over 100 calls at least over the last two days,” said Kathy Adams, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County Election Supervisor. At least four counties in Tennessee had to close polls early because of tornadoes and severe weather, while other precincts stayed open late to accommodate lines of voters.
State Election Coordinator Brook Thompson said precincts needed to be closed to protect election workers. “We don’t like to see this happen, but we’ve got to do what we have to do to protect our poll workers,” Thompson said.
The turnout in Alaska was so great that polling places were overcrowded, and one had to be moved during the middle of the event at a fire marshal’s order. Nearly 4,000 Democrats streamed into the Anchorage caucus site, shattering the previous record of 254 voters in 2004. There were so many voters, police threatened to tow cars.
Connecticut’s Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz said there were relatively few problems with their new, optical scan voting machines. Six out of the 825 devices used across the state had to be replaced with back-ups. Two jammed and three were not properly programmed, she said.
New Jersey’s officials received about 200 calls from confused voters, many of which came from residents frustrated that they could not switch parties for the primaries. “The number of people who were turned away from the polls and sought our assistance to exercise their right to vote was extraordinarily high for a presidential primary,” said Laurie Brewer, spokeswoman for the state Public Advocate’s Office.
The New Mexico caucus was plagued by a lack of ballots at a handful of polling sites and hours-long lines that snaked through hallways and around buildings. At one location in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, at least 1,000 people were still in line to vote when polls closed.
“Unfortunately the lines were long, but the good thing was there was absolutely a ton of interest to participate in this caucus,” said Jim Noel, a volunteer at the Rio Rancho site.
In the blue-collar Connecticut town of Manchester, near Hartford, turnout surged to nearly 70 percent, forcing election officials to photocopy 3,000 ballots. Asked if he was surprised, registrar Frank Maffe Jr. replied, “Astounds me is more like it. It’s amazing.”
There also were long lines in Minnesota, Illinois, Georgia and Kansas, among others. Kansas Democrats had predicted between 10,000 and 11,000 people would participate. But the intense national brought more than 33,000 participants to 50 caucus sites across the state.
In Wichita, the line outside a county courthouse stretched more than two blocks, and a few voters stood in line for two hours in rain and blowing snow. Organizers of a caucus at a Topeka middle school set up chairs for about 350 people, only to see 900 show up.
Officials in Boise, Idaho, were forced to hand out paper ballots to those who couldn’t fit into the caucus site — the 6,800-seat Qwest Arena. Some 9,000 ballots had been printed, but officials soon had to run to a copy shop to print another 5,000. “When people are voting out in the street, the integrity of the process is challenged,” said Steve Mendive, a government teacher at Boise High School. “People were just grabbing ballots out there. There’s no security in the process.”
Voters in Georgia, who are now required to present photo identification, were faced with lines of up to 90 minutes long. Poll workers were bogged down comparing IDs with computerized registration records.
As polls closed in California — the country’s most delegate-rich state — record numbers of mail-in ballots and high voter turnout threatened to delay tallies until Wednesday or later. An estimated 50 percent of voters cast ballots by mail.
In Los Angeles County, elected officials and voter-outreach groups flagged concerns over a so-called “double-bubble” problem with the county’s ballots that could disenfranchise nonpartisan voters.
