Officials say there were few initial voting problems

TALLAHASSEE, Florida -- Of 6,922 voting precincts in Florida there were initial problems at only a few.

"All in all, everything is going very well," said Jenny Nash, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of State. She characterized delayed openings of five precincts as "the usual, things we see every election."

Polls did not open on time in one precinct in Polk County, where a power outage delayed its start until 7:20 a.m.

Nash said three precincts in Broward County also were not able to open on time, including one in Deerfield Beach, where poll watchers said voters for three hours were not even allowed to cast a provisional paper ballot.

Election monitors with People for the American Way asked their lawyers to investigate.

"I wouldn't call any of these conflagrations, but there definitely are brush fires," said Elliot Mincberg, legal director for the civil rights organization keeping vigil over a number of South Florida polls.

Mincberg called on Broward elections supervisor Brenda Snipes to petition Gov. Jeb Bush to keep that precinct open after the rest of Florida closes at 7 p.m. to allow makeup time for residents to cast their ballots.

Neither Snipes nor her press aide could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

In Leon County, voters whose ballots were rejected by a jammed electronic machine in one precinct were invited to return this evening to watch their secured votes be fed into the scanner.