INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana voters headed to the polls Tuesday amid Republican hopes for big gains in the state's congressional delegation and Legislature, but it wasn't immediately clear whether voters were turning out in the numbers the party had hoped for.
About a dozen people waited in line about 9 a.m. at a polling station in the trendy Indianapolis neighborhood of Broad Ripple.
"We'll probably have a heavy turnout this year," said poll worker John Shurig.
Kevin Schafer, a Democratic ward chairman at a nearby precinct, said turnout was steady, with about 70 of 711 registered voters casting their ballots by 8 a.m. About 196 voters had shown up by late morning at the polling location at the Children's Museum on the near northside of Indianapolis.
Nevertheless, The Indianapolis Star reported a light turnout at handful of precincts around the city. The Star Press said voter turnout in Muncie seemed typical for a non-presidential election year, and the Journal & Courier reported that early voting lines in Lafayette were small.
State officials say more than 247,000 people cast ballots before Election Day. That's well ahead of the pace from the 2006 midterm election, when about 170,500 Hoosiers voted early.
Republicans were hoping voter unrest over the economy and federal stimulus package and health care overhaul would lead to Democratic turnover in the congressional delegation.
Polls have shown Republican Dan Coats with a strong lead over Democrat Brad Ellsworth in the U.S. Senate race. The GOP also hoped to pick up the U.S. House seats held by Ellsworth and Democrats Baron Hill and Joe Donnelly.
The wild card was expected to be the impact of the conservative tea party, which has thrown its support to Coats and others in the GOP.
"I think there's a lot of people unhappy with their government," said James Price, a 35-year-old Indianapolis attorney who said he voted a straight Republican ticket.
Sarah Hempstead, an Indianapolis architect, agreed on that point, though she voted quite differently.
"I think that we're going to be in a backlash year against the incumbents. That tended to sway my vote really toward protecting people who ought to be in office," said Hempstead, 35, who voted mostly for Democrats.
Price said he was underwhelmed by President Barack Obama's performance and thought the health care overhaul was a mistake. He also said he thought the economy was still shaky.
"You still have a lot of people out of work," he said. "We're losing a lot of jobs. We have massive amounts of debt."
Candace Backer, a 51-year-old social worker from Indianapolis, said that she believes more time is needed to fix the nation's problems.
"I think it's going to take us more than two years to get us out of the mess it took us eight, 10, 12 years to get into. I just don't think there's an easy fix here, and we want easy fixes," said Backer, who said she voted a straight Democratic ticket.
Election officials reported minor problems Tuesday.
Todd Darroca, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office, said poll workers at one Indianapolis precinct told voters to place their ballots in the ballot box without first checking them on a machine used to tabulate votes because the machine wasn't working. Officials later determined the machine wasn't turned on.
Darroca also said officials at a precinct in southern Indiana's Clark County had to take down a picture of the president.
Marion County clerk's office spokeswoman Angie Nussmeyer said voting in Indianapolis got under way fairly smoothly. She said three precincts opened late when poll workers failed to show up on time. In one case, a substitute had to be found, she said.
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