Long -- but not unbearable -- lines greet many suburban voters

Two election judges showed up at their Evanston polling place early today, took one look at lines full of people waiting to vote and panicked.

So they left, said Courtney Greve, spokeswoman for Cook County Clerk David Orr.

"Being an election judge is a very tough job," she said.

The clerk's office had about 165 extra judges on hand today. Two were dispatched to Evanston and the crisis was averted, Greve said.

So were most on Tuesday morning. With a record voter turnout expected, lines have been long everywhere and people seemed to accept that.

"There were lines all over suburban Cook County before 6 a.m.," Greve said. "It shows how interested people are in this election. People are really excited and they are willing to wait."

As far as technical problems, Greve described them as "business as usual." They included three precincts - in Evanston, Orland Park and Cicero - opening an hour late. A judge will decide later today if those precincts will remain open past 7 p.m. tonight.

About 60 of the more than 5,000 voting machines had to be recalibrated, Greve said.

Democrats in DuPage County were complaining about police hassling campaign workers at polling sites in Addison and Bensenville.

Election commission attorney Pat Bond intervened when a woman was threatened with arrest at Blackhawk Middle School in Bensenville for electioneering. Bond said the officer was "under the mistaken belief that you can't campaign at a polling place."

In Addison, Democrats said police there were keeping campaign workers from handing out materials even though the workers were more than 100 feet from the entrance of the polling site.

DuPage Democratic Party Chairman Bob Peickert said his office would be releasing a report after the election detailing the issues they had with tactics used by police at polling sites Tuesday.

Most polling places in the county went without police protection Tuesday. It is unclear why police were called to these sites.

Officials from multiple police departments in DuPage County confirmed they have sent officers to an undisclosed staging area in case they are needed by Chicago police Tuesday night.

The request for extra bodies came through a mutual aid agreement from the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System.

Police officials said they could not say how many officers were deployed and where they were sent to wait. The cost of keeping the officers at the ready will be picked up by the individual departments, police officials said.

Voters and election officials were equally surprised when the anticipated long lines never materialized. But no one was complaining.

"We were expecting a long line and to wait at least an hour," said Wheaton voter Wendy Whelton, who brought her three daughters to the polling site at the fairgrounds. "That's why they all brought something to do while we waited."

Steve Newton showed up to vote at Maryville Academy around 6:15 a.m. today to vote only to find out his precinct had been moved to another Maryville building.

"I went home and did some research and found out the entrance was off River Road," said Newton, of Mount Prospect. "Once I got there, there were no lines. It worked out well for me, but some people drove off when they couldn't find the entrance."

Despite the turnout at suburban polling places, officials said voters seem to be taking the wait to cast a ballot in stride.

"We had a line down the stairs, out the door and out into the parking lot when we opened this morning," said polling place site manager Nancy Cooper, who is manning the booths at Fremont Public Library in Mundelein. "But no one seemed to mind. They just waited for their turn, then stepped up and voted."

Cooper said they processed 460 voters in the first 90 minutes after polls opened Tuesday morning. In comparison, she said, the library only processed 1,100 voters in the last November election.

While the lines seemed to dwindle at about 8 a.m, Cooper expects them to pick up again at noon and again after 5 p.m.

"We'll be busy all day," Cooper said. "We expected long lines, and we got them. We've never been this busy."

In far west suburban Yorkville, lines were only 15 minutes long at one polling place at 6 a.m., while at Geneva's Mill Creek Elementary School, voters had to wait about 25 minutes.

Election judges in DuPage County said voter turnout early Tuesday morning was larger than they've experienced in the previous two presidential elections.

"I've never seen this many people waiting at the door at 6 a.m.," said Julie Mitchell, a technical judge at the county fairgrounds polling site in Wheaton. "There had to be 50 or 60 people already in line when the doors opened."

The long lines anticipated by many election experts never materialized as voters steadily streamed through polling places heavily staffed to expedite the process.

"I figured there'd be a little more of a wait, but it only took five or six minutes," said Warrenville voter Dan Palma. "I guess I'll just take a little bit longer lunch.

By noon a little more than 400 people had voted at the fairgrounds site. Other polling sites in the county were reporting between 400 and 500 voters by noon. If 400 voters had already voted by noon at each of the county's 386 polling locations, more than 150,000 votes had been cast. Add that to the 96,000 early voters and that means almost half of the county's 550,000 registered voters have already cast ballots.

There have been reports of scattered voting glitches at some Chicago polling places, officials said.

Voting in Washington Park on the South Side was slowed when there were not enough pens to mark the ballots, while at the Club Lucky bar and restaurant in Bucktown, a touchscreen voting machine wasn't working. That meant voters had to use paper ballots.

Election Judge Joe Lake says three election judges didn't show up, so he recruited volunteers from among the voters standing in line.

Now things are moving along, and a line snakes out the door and down the sidewalk.

Daily Herald staff and Associated Press contributed to this report.

Voter information

To find your polling place, report problems and make sure you are registered, check with your local county election office:

Lake County: (847) 377-2000 or www.co.lake.il.us

DuPage County: (630) 407-5600 or www.dupageelections.com

Kane County: (630) 232-5990 or www.kanecountyelections.org

McHenry County: (815) 334-4242 or www.co.mchenry.il.us

Cook County: (312) 603-0906 or www.voterinfonet.com

Aurora Election Commission: (630) 897-4030 or www.aurora-il.org/electioncommission/index.php

Will County: (815) 740-4615 or www.willclrk.com/home.htm

Kendall County: (630) 553-4104 or www.co.kendall.il.us/countyclerk/index.htm

State Board of Elections complaint hotline: (866) 513-1121

Illinois Attorney General complaint hotline: (866) 536-3496

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