Delays reported at Hamilton County polls

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The polls opened Tuesday morning with scattered reports of problems.

Within the first 15 minutes of voting after the polls opened at 6 a.m. Tuesday, several callers to WISH-TV reported issues with voting machines not working at various places in Hamilton County. Announcements on the delay were being made in some locations with 100 or more people in line. One caller to WISH-TV even said election officials were asking for anyone in line with IT experience to provide help.

The Hamilton County Clerk's office, however, said all machines were up and running by about 6:20 a.m., though long lines remained. The problem centered on vote cards used with the machines. 

County Election Administrator Kathy Richardson told The Associated Press about half of the county's 150 polling places received incorrectly programmed cards used to clear tallies from machines before voting begins. She said those cards did not work because they had been set on a demonstration machine.

Once those cards were reprogrammed the machines worked fine. But Richardson said long lines had formed at several polling sites by then, and voters at a voting center in a high school faced a 30-minute wait to vote.

Richardson said the delays caused by fixing the problem made lines that were going to be long even longer. She calls it "a hard, hard lesson learned."

Due to the delay, some voters who said they would not be able to return later in the day to vote were allowed to cast paper ballots, election officials said.

As of mid-morning, there were no plans to keep polls open later due to the problems, election officials said. The local officials don't have authority to extend voting hours, they said, noting that a judge would have to make that determination.

In Anderson, one caller reported voters in an entire precinct were being told there was an error and they would have to return this afternoon to vote once the error had been sorted out.

In Marion County, two polling sites were experiencing delays due to inspectors not being on-site. 

At the site for Perry 47 and 52, workers were able to partially open the polls, but the inspector had to go to the hospital with his pregnant wife, and the ballots were being placed in a secure bin until back-up inspectors arrived.

At the site at Sacred Heart Church on Meridian Street, the opening of one precinct's poll was delayed until a back-up inspector arrived.

By just after 8 a.m., election officials were reporting no additional problems beyond the usual maneuvering to meet demand at specific locations or deal with routine issues. The polls are open through 6 p.m. (Twelve Indiana counties are on Central Time, so they opened and will close an hour later than most of the state.) 

You'll need an ID to vote. You can still obtain one through 6 p.m. today. For more information on that, click here .

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Check back with WISHTV.com for election updates throughout the day. Then, after the polls close, check back for real-time updates as the votes are counted.