'Never Seen Crowds Like This'

In Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) sought to assure voters yesterday. "We are working hard to ensure that we're able to accommodate the crowds next Tuesday," he said in a statement.

The state will have spare voting machines loaded onto vans ready to be deployed to the busiest districts. Some jurisdictions will use high school students as greeters to keep lines moving.

Voters can help by becoming familiar with the ballot beforehand and casting their votes during off-peak hours, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., officials said. Those who qualify have been urged to vote absentee. And many have. People have been streaming into polling places, creating long lines that officials said were a glimpse of what's to come Tuesday.

"We've never seen crowds like this for in-person absentee voting," said Gary Scott, Fairfax County's deputy registrar. The silver lining, he said, is that "every person who votes absentee is one less person on Election Day."

Elections offices in the District also have been swamped. The District expects to have 2,500 poll workers, up from about 1,500 in 2000, according to Dan Murphy, spokesman for the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics. The District will have about 20 "area representatives" driving across the city with extra ballots and emergency supplies.

About 1,000 voters a day were showing up to cast absentee ballots in Arlington County, said Linda Lindberg, the general registrar. The county has surpassed the 12,000 absentee ballots cast in 2004, she said, and the number continues to climb.

Epstein said jurisdictions such as Fairfax, Arlington and Loudoun counties should be well positioned to handle the Election Day crush because they use paper ballots as well as electronic voting machines if there are long waits.

The worst problems, he said, could occur in Prince William County, which only uses electronic voting machines and has one machine for every 600 registered voters. There are about 218,000 registered voters in the county. Three spare machines are available in case of breakdowns.

"There's a potential disaster there," he said.

Betty Weimer, the county's general registrar, rejects that dire prediction, saying three spares should suffice because "typically, we do not have any problems with our voting equipment."

She added that the county was well ahead of the state mandate of one machine for every 750 voters. Plus, voters have only three choices to make on the ballot in Prince William: the presidential race and two congressional races. There are no time-consuming ballot questions.

"It should move very quickly," she said. "I think we'll be fine."