Ball State University students and Delaware County residents may have encountered problems working the new machines or voting Tuesday morning, but they were able to go to the polls for almost three extra hours.
Both the L.A. Pittenger Student Center and 27th Precinct, located at the Delaware County Fair Grounds, had a 20-minute delayed start. There was a problem with the activation keys for the electronic MicrovVote; Infinity voting booths, as they did not have the correct activation code.
The polls at Northside Middle School were down longer and those voting machines were not operational until 8:40 a.m.
Because some polls were not open on time, Judge Wayne Lennington ruled that the polls could stay open until 8:40 p.m. instead of 6 p.m.
While the electronic voting machines were down, voters were instructed to fill out provisional ballots that were set in place as a backup for the electronic system.
Those paper ballots were used until the machines were operational, and then again after the original polling close time.
Delaware County was not the only area with a voting problem due to technological glitches. Time extensions were granted to several precincts in Pennsylvania and North Carolina as well.
By the end of the day some of the poll workers in Delaware County said they would have volunteered almost 16 hours for Tuesday's election.
"We feel like we owe this to the people, because they were cheated out of this time," Dianak Walker, who ran the polls at Northside Middle School, said.
Some voters, like Matt McKee, Muncie, and Ball State senior Jessica Onderwater, said they chose to use the provisional ballots but were not told their votes would not be counted the same way as the electronic votes. The provisional votes were subject for review, and acceptance, at a later date.
Voting in the Student Center Ballroom was supervised by Dee Martin, 26th Precinct inspector. The poll workers in the Student Center were able to reactivate the key card after only 20 minutes of help from MicroVote over the phone. Those poll workers later helped another precinct over the phone recode its cards and start the polling process, Martin said.
"We didn't turn anyone away," Martin said. "Anyone that wanted to vote was allowed to do so. We had some fill out provisional ballots, or just wait until we had the machines working properly."
Bill Haas, of MicroVote, told NewsLink Indiana the problem was his fault. The PIN number in the activation keys was incorrect at several Delaware County voting locations. Though the machines were tested prior to the opening of the election, the keys themselves were not, he said.
Along with the late start there was also confusion over the voting process. A poll worker at Storer Elementary School said she was instructed to tell voters to vote a straight ticket before they started voting, and then they could change votes for specific candidates if they wanted to.
Delaware County Clerk Karen Wenger said voters should not have been told to pick a party before they began voting.
"I'm sure that didn't go on," she said. "If that happened, that didn't go on under my training. That goes against everything in our election training. No voters called in and complained. We would have put a stop to it,"
Karla Powell, Muncie, said she voted at Storer Elementary School, and the voting process was confusing.
"The instructions said you could select one party or you could just start voting," she said. "So, I just started voting, and things went wonderfully."
Voter Donna Hofman said she didn't understand at first why two men were standing behind her at the voting machine. She then realized, however, that the men were there to help her learn how to work the machine and cast her vote, she said.
The new machines were not a welcome change for Dorothy McKelvey, Muncie, who said she did not like the machines. She said she was first shown how to choose a straight ticket, but also how to individually chose her votes.
Even though Wenger said she doesn't think poll workers persuaded voters to vote straight ticket, she said she will take action if voters complain. "If a complaint is filed, we can call the poll workers and question them under oath," she said.
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