Poll Hours Extended for Md. Voters

The enforcement of a judge's order to keep polls in Montgomery County open an extra hour this evening was plagued with problems as county officials found themselves unable to communicate last-minute instructions to polling stations and some precincts ran out of paper ballots. A few precinct judges were being asked to wait for the ballots to arrive, even if it meant keeping the polls open beyond the 9 p.m. closing time, an election official said.

Police officers were dispatched to polling stations where election officials hadn't been able to reach precinct judges by telephone in order to instruct them to stay open an extra hour, according to Board of Elections lawyer Kevin Karpinski. He said that, in some cases, precinct judges were being asked to give voters a sample ballot and let them vote by filling out a sheet of paper indicating their choices.

At the county Board of Elections headquarters in Rockville, Alan Banov, a member of the county's Democratic Central Committee, barked orders into his cell phone as he spoke to colleagues in the field. Precinct "1332 is closing!" he yelled shortly after 8 p.m., after getting a report from a candidate who was at a polling place in Silver Spring. "There are people who are going to get disenfranchised -- that's all there is to it."

At Piney Branch Elementary School in Takoma Park, officials quickly ran out of paper ballots and began telling voters to use scraps of paper, said Kathryn Desmond, whose husband Dennis was voting with the makeshift paper ballots. Officials, she said, "were calling out the names on the ballot," Kathryn Desmond said. About 50 people, Dennis Desmond estimated, were voting the same way after electronic balloting ended around 8 p.m. He said that election officials dispatched a worker to a nearby CVS to buy envelopes and masking tape so the makeshift ballots could be enclosed and sealed. "Voters were pretty patient. With each new announcement, you had to laugh. It got more and more ludicrous," he said. He arrived at Piney Branch at 7:45 and according to what election board officials had promised, Desmond should have been able to vote electronically because he was in line before 8 p.m. But that was not the case. At 8:02 p.m. election judges said they were ending electronic voting and turning to provisional ballots. But they quickly ran out of ballots, Desmond said.

The problems began this morning when Montgomery election officials failed to distribute to precincts the electronic cards needed to operate computerized voting machines. Election officials scrambled to deliver the cards by late morning, but many voters were told they had to return later or vote on paper ballots that will not be counted until Monday.

Following a lawsuit filed by the state Democratic Party, a Baltimore judge ordered a similar one-hour extension because some polls had opened late.

Some candidates complained that their supporters were being disenfranchised. "The level of incompetence that led to this is almost surreal -- especially in Montgomery County," said state's attorney Douglas Gansler, a Democratic candidate for attorney general.

An apologetic Montgomery Board of Elections president Nancy H. Dacek called the lapse "a fluke." Board spokeswoman Marjorie Roher said the electronic cards were discovered early this morning after calls began coming in from different precincts, beginning around 6:15 a.m. The cards were found "on a shelf in the warehouse," and were immediately sent out to the polling places in employees' cars but many polling places did not open for several hours. About 20 drivers were rounded up and sent to the county's precincts, consulting printouts that gave them addresses for voting sites.

This afternoon, county officials were rounding up electricians, plumbers, carpenters and other public works employees to deliver provisional ballots to the county's 238 polling places. About 20 county vans were assembling at the Board of Elections office on Twinbrook Parkway to get ready to make the deliveries.

"We are calling all staff and vehicles, " said Scott Reilly, a top official in the county executive's office who said he showed up at the elections board to "offer any support."

Polling officials in Prince George's also reported problems at precincts because staff had quit or failed to show up on time. Howard County officials said new electronic polling books froze up occasionally, causing delays.

Today's primaries are the first step in an election that will choose a new U.S. senator for the first time in 20 years and may put new leaders in every statewide office.