A sign reminds residents to do their civic duty on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in Lewiston, Maine. [AP]
The hitch in Maricopa County, Arizona's largest, garnered outsized attention. A ballot-printing issue affected the ability of tabulators to scan ballots in slightly more than 25% of the county's polling places, prompting an outcry from Republicans in a state where elections for governor and U.S. Senate are expected to be close and where skepticism of election systems has run deep within the GOP since 2020.
"I'm embarrassed for Arizona," Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake said Tuesday after casting her ballot.
More than 40,000 tweets about the machine failures spread in the span of two hours, according to the Stanford-affiliated Election Integrity Partnership, a group of some of the world's top misinformation researchers.
"I am very sorry for any voter who has been frustrated or inconvenienced today in Maricopa County," said county Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican. "Every legal vote will be tabulated. I promise."
A person votes on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in Atlanta. [AP]
At a polling place in the Atlanta suburb of Woodstock, 25-year-old voter Tyler Moore said she won't be surprised if there's controversy after the election. "Everybody is on their toes about it," she said after casting her ballot at a church. "But the best thing we can do about it is just to vote."
College students waited in hourslong lines to register and vote in Michigan, which offers same-day registration. As of about 9 p.m., about 200 people still waited in East Lansing, along with about 500 people in Ann Arbor, state officials said.
Jessica Prozinski, who lives in Ann Arbor, brought blankets to hand out to the students after seeing a social media post.
"I don't know if I am going to get my blankets back, but that doesn't really matter," said Prozinski, 47.
An absentee voter drops off their ballot outside the Flathead County Courthouse in Kalispell, Mont., Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. [AP]
False claims about widespread fraud and manipulation of voting machines have spread widely among Republicans, fueled by conspiracy theorists on social media and at events held across the country.
Election officials have defended the system. They note the many checks in place to ensure that machines accurately count ballots and that fraud attempts and cyberattacks are identified and stopped.
Most voters also cast hand-marked paper ballots or use machines that produce a paper record of their votes. These are used after the election to check that ballot-counting machines worked properly.
Election worker Patrick Schmeichel prepares to process ballots that just arrived from a ballot drop-box on Election Day at the King County Elections headquarters, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in Renton, Wash. ([AP]