US voters face long queues, machine glitches and ‘mosh pit’ crowds in hotly contested midterm elections

Long queues and malfunctioning machines marred the early hours of voting in some precincts across the country on Tuesday. Some of the biggest problems were in Georgia, a state with a hotly contested gubernatorial election, where some voters reported waiting up to three hours to vote.

At a polling place in Snellville, Georgia, more than 100 people took turns sitting in children’s chairs and on the floor as they waited in line for hours. Voting machines at the Gwinnett County precinct did not work, so poll workers offered provisional paper ballots while trying to get a replacement machine.

One voter, Ontaria Woods, said about two dozen people who had come to vote left because of the queues.

“We’ve been trying to tell them to wait, but people have children. People are getting hungry. People are tired,” Woods said. Woods said she and others turned down the paper ballots because they “don’t trust it”.

Joe Sorenson, a spokesman for the county’s supervisor of elections, said some precincts “have had issues with express polls”, devices election workers use to check in voters and create access cards for voting machines.

Across the United States, even before Tuesday’s vote, there were a wide variety of concerns with voting and registration systems around the country – from machines that changed voter selections to registration forms tossed out because of clerical errors.

Election officials and voting rights groups have feared that voter confidence in the results could be undermined if such problems become more widespread Tuesday, as millions of Americans decide pivotal races for Congress and governor.