On a potentially record-setting Election Day in Michigan, problems at the polls in metro Detroit popped up sporadically, leaving some voters waiting in line for more than an hour while others left altogether. Several would-be voters in Redford Township did not stay Tuesday morning while the lone voting machine at Pierce Middle School was being fixed, voter Rex Nagy said. “It stinks, it really does. So many people were upset,” Nagy said. In Detroit, voting equipment was not ready when the polls opened at Martin Luther King Jr. High School because a custodian did not know where the equipment was located, city elections director Daniel Baxter confirmed in a text message.
These problems and others surfaced during a crucial midterm election on Tuesday that was expected to break voter turnout records and serve as a referendum of sorts on President Donald Trump’s first two years in office.
Statewide, absentee voting was on pace to vastly exceed figures during the last gubernatorial election. As of Monday, 993,541 absentee ballots were returned in Michigan compared with 693,885 the day before Election Day in 2014.
Election Day turnout also seemed higher than in recent elections, voters and political organizations said.
Full Article: Problems at Michigan polls persist as voter turnout ramps up.