Minor issues reported at Suffolk, beach polls

From staff reports

Tuesday's election was free of long lines and major glitches in most places, but some voters in Suffolk and Virginia Beach encountered problems.

In Suffolk, a glitch with the electronic poll books led to some people who showed up to vote being listed as absentee voters.

It appeared that data from last year was downloaded into the system, said David Sylvia, chairman of Suffolk's Electoral Board. That meant that at least some, if not all, of the residents who voted absentee in the 2008 election were shown as having received an absentee ballot this year.

This is the first year that all precincts are using the electronic poll books, but a paper version - which had the correct information - was available as a backup.

Sylvia said he didn't know how many voters had been affected, but it had the potential to be several thousand. More than 6,000 people voted absentee in Suffolk last year - more than usual, because of the presidential election.

Anyone whose voting status couldn't immediately be confirmed was given a paper ballot, Sylvia said.

"It's not a problem with votes being lost or anything like that," he said. "All the valid, legal voters are counted."

Representatives from the state Board of Elections plan to visit Suffolk today to look into what happened, he said.

In Virginia Beach, Registrar Pat Harrington said she called Republican Party officials after a voter at Salem Middle School complained that Republican observers were standing behind election officials, viewing voters' information on their computer screens, and sending text messages or e-mails based on the information.

Harrington said observers are allowed to sit inside precincts and record voters' names and addresses but cannot stand behind election workers, check identifications or read information on computers. She asked the party to tell them to move.

Virginia GOP spokesman TimMurtaugh said both major political parties use poll watchers as part of their get-out-the-vote efforts.

"You want to know who has voted so that later in the day you know who hasn't voted and you can try to encourage them to," he said. "It's about boosting turnout. There's nothing sinister about it."