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(CNN) -- With more voters than ever using electronic voting machines during Tuesday's midterm elections, scattered glitches were reported across the country. The polls in Delaware County, Indiana, will remain open an extra two hours and 40 minutes, until 8:40 p.m. ET, because of a computer error with electronic voting machines. The problem delayed the opening time for more than 70 precincts.
The extension was approved by the 5th Circuit Court of Delaware County after local election officials filed to keep the polls open longer, according to Phil Nichols of the Delaware County Board of Elections.
"The company that made the machines said the PIN numbers were wrong on the cards needed to activate the machines, and we are attempting as best we can to rectify a situation that would otherwise prohibit people from voting," Judge Wayne Lennington of the 5th Circuit Court told CNN. "I really believe the company let us down in a big way."
Lennington said he had spoken to an official with MicroVote General Corp. earlier in the day. The Board of Elections will file a complaint against MicroVote for the delays, Nichols said.
The polls in the rest of the state will close at the scheduled time of 7 p.m. ET.
In Marion County, Indiana, paper ballots had to be used in more than 100 precincts because touch screens on electronic voting machines weren't working, according to election officials.
In Cleveland, Ohio, election workers fumbled with new touch-screen machines that they couldn't get to start properly until about 10 minutes after polls opened, according to The Associated Press.
In New Jersey, a handful of polling locations in Camden County experienced problems with Sequoia electronic voting machines, according to Phyllis Pearl, the Camden County Superintendent of Elections.
Pearl said 35 of the county's 700 machines had printer or mechanical malfunctions. Nine of the machines were replaced because of mechanical problems, and three districts had to switch temporarily to emergency ballots as a result of the malfunctions.
Voting was delayed for about 90 minutes in Deerfield Beach, Florida, according to Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes, after a poll worker used the same activator to "turn on" machines for two precincts sharing the same location. Each precinct is supposed to have its own activator. New electronic machines and new activators were brought in.
In Colorado, lawyers for the state's Democratic Party filed a request for a two-hour extension in voting for all of Denver County, according to Brian Mason of the Colorado Democratic Party.
Mason said there were "severe problems when the polls opened this morning in Denver. ... The poll books, which show registered voters, were not ready."
He said many voters waited in long lines as a result and many left without voting because the sites ran out of provisional ballots, which are used in case of such an emergency.
Not all voting problems could be blamed on machines.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was turned away at his polling place because he'd forgotten his voter registration card.
Another type of problem that could affect voter turnout was the weather.
CNN meteorologists pinpointed a few areas where weather was bad enough Tuesday to have a serious impact: the Southeast, especially Georgia and the Carolinas, where heavy rain and thunderstorms were in the forecast; Montana and Idaho, with high winds; and Washington state, where heavy rain and severe flooding have left highways blocked and people stranded.
The Justice Department dispatched an army of more than 850 election observers and monitors to polling places where they see a potential for racial or ethnic discrimination or other violations of voting rights.
After weeks of weighing requests for a federal presence at potential trouble spots, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his Civil Rights Division lawyers decided to send the poll watchers to 69 jurisdictions in 22 states.
The federal authorities were sent to monitor a wide variety of specific issues, but in some cases, as in New Orleans, the observers will be there primarily to provide support to a wobbly post-Katrina election system which could be overwhelmed by residency issues.
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