Americans voted without major problems Tuesday in midterm elections that followed two years of false claims and conspiracy theories about how ballots are cast and counted.
No widespread problems with ballots or voter intimidation were reported by 8:30 p.m., although there were glitches in some places. None were unusual but some prominent Republicans began criticizing election procedures.
Former President Donald Trump and his allies have succeeded in sowing wide distrust about voting by promoting false claims of extensive fraud. Those efforts, which have eroded public confidence in elections and democracy, continued Tuesday as Trump and other prominent Republicans claimed that routine voting problems were a sign of efforts by Democrats to rig the election.
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Jesse Littlewood, vice president of campaigns at Common Cause, which advocates for voting access, countered: “There are attempts to use those election administration and voting machine issues that election workers are working to fix to spin a disinformation campaign.”
Nationwide election officials defend the system. They note the many checks in place to ensure only one vote per person is counted, the reviews that ensure machines accurately count ballots and the efforts to identify any fraud attempts.
“State and local election officials have contingency plans in place so voters can have confidence in our elections,” the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors said in a statement.
Here’s a look at some of the hiccups, which included malfunctioning vote tabulators, lack of supplies and delayed openings.
Tabulation Troubles in Maricopa County
Trouble with the vote-tabulation machines in Maricopa County, Arizona, sparked an outpouring of criticism on social media, and prompted Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to say after casting her ballot: “I'm embarrassed for Arizona.”
A spokesperson for the state’s elections department, Megan Gilbertson, said the problem was minor and that voters had options for casting their ballots, including using the secure drop box at the polling place or going to a different voting center.
At issue were printers that were not producing dark enough markings on the ballots, which required election officials to change the printer settings. Until then, some voters who tried to insert their ballots into voting tabulators were forced to wait and use other machines or were told they could leave their ballots in a drop box. Those votes were expected to be counted Wednesday.
The issue affected about 25% of voting centers in Maricopa County, which includes metropolitan Phoenix. It was not immediately clear how many ballots were affected.
The issue gave rise to conspiracy theories about the integrity of the vote in the pivotal state. Trump, Lake and others weighed in to claim that Democrats were trying to subvert the vote of Republicans, who tend to show up in greater numbers in person on Election Day.
Lake and several other candidates on the Arizona ballot have pushed false claims about the 2020 presidential race, amplifying Trump's lies about a stolen election. But election officials from both political parties and members of Trump's own Cabinet have said there was no widespread voter fraud and that Trump lost reelection to Democrat Joe Biden.
The Republican National Committee, along with the campaigns of Lake and Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters, filed an emergency motion to extend voting hours in Maricopa County. Arizona law allows anyone still in line when the polls close to vote.
“We have dozens of attorneys and thousands of volunteers on the ground working to solve this issue and ensure that Arizona voters have the chance to make their voices heard,” the RNC chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, said in a statement.
A state judge in Maricopa County denied the requests.
By midday, nearly half of the county’s 232 voting centers reported no waits at all. The longest wait was slightly over an hour at an outlet mall in the Phoenix suburb of Anthem.
The Maricopa County Elections Department said it had identified the solution and was fixing the tabulators at about 60 vote centers.
“I am very sorry for any voter who has been frustrated or inconvenienced today in Maricopa County," county Recorder Stephen Richer said. "Every legal vote will be tabulated. I promise.”
Supplies Run Low
In northeastern Pennsylvania's Luzerne County, several polling places needed their supply of ballots replenished. County Solicitor Mike Butera said no voters were turned away, more ballots were being delivered to every precinct and that polls would stay open an extra two hours.
Also in Pennsylvania, some of the largest counties were scrambling to help voters fix mail-in ballots that had flaws such as incorrect dates or missing signatures on the envelopes used to send them in. That has led to confusion and legal challenges in the battleground state where a few thousand ballots may be enough to sway the outcomes of statewide races.
Delayed Openings and Other Polling Place Problems
Some voting sites in North Carolina were delayed in opening because workers showed up late, and officials extended voting hours there.
A polling place in Louisiana — one about 20 minutes outside of New Orleans — had to be moved from one school to another after a bomb threat, according to John Tobler, the deputy secretary of communications and outreach at the Louisiana Department of State, NBC News reported.
Polling places in Harris County, Texas, were kept open for an extra hour after a voting rights group filed a lawsuit, NBC News also reported.
Missing Pages
At nearly two dozen Chicago precincts, some voters were only given the first of two ballot pages.
Voters given paper ballots should have received Ballot A and Ballot B but some did not receive Ballot B, election officials said. The second ballot page contained elections related to retention judges and local referendum questions, depending on the precinct.
In many cases "it was resolved onsite or eventually got to it by election judges," said a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections, Max Bever.
For those who believe they may have only received one ballot page while voting, Bever said the best course of action is to call Election Central at (312) 269-7870.
"As a general call, if a voter does think that this happened to them, or that they only receive one ballot please call Election Central," Bever said.
How exactly such cases will be handled remains unclear.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
