North Carolina: Governor Signs Law Limiting Successor’s Power | The New York Times

Amid a tense and dramatic backdrop of outrage and frustration, North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature on Friday approved a sweeping package of restrictions on the power of the governor’s office in advance of the swearing in of the Democratic governor-elect, Roy Cooper. Protesters spent a second day chanting and disrupting debate, as some were arrested and led away from the state legislative building in plastic wrist restraints. Democratic lawmakers repeatedly referred to the move as a “power grab” carried out by a Republican Party upset that their candidate, Gov. Pat McCrory, had lost the governor’s race. Republicans countered by emphasizing that they had suffered similar indignities for many decades when Democrats controlled the legislature here. State Senator Chad Barefoot, a Republican, said that the changes return “power that was grabbed during Democratic administrations in the 1990s, and some in the ’70s.” But some here said that Republicans’ effort to hobble the incoming governor had few parallels in recent North Carolina history.

Editorials: Pennsylvania’s voting system is one of the worst | Candice Hoke/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In May 2006, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, launched an e-voting system, producing a nationally notorious election disaster in which every technical and management system failed. One of the largest election jurisdictions in the nation, the county used DRE touchscreens similar to Allegheny County’s. When the election tabulation database grew beyond what it was designed to handle — a flaw concealed by the manufacturer — it silently began dropping votes and other data, without notifying officials. An accurate recount was possible, however, because Ohio had required paper printouts of voters’ e-ballots. Recounts showed that some previously announced winners actually had lost. The hidden software problem did not extinguish anyone’s voting rights only because there was a paper trail. Experts in election technology have pointed out that most Pennsylvania counties — including Allegheny — use e-voting systems that have been outlawed by most states. The chief reason? The omission of voter-approved paper printouts that can be recounted and that allow for audits to check on the accuracy of the electronic machines. Even when voting systems are aged and vulnerable to hacking or tampering, durable paper ballots combined with quality-assurance audits can ensure trustworthy results. Cuyahoga County election officials, like many around the nation, have learned that, even though their voting machines are certified and function perfectly one day, on another day they may fail to count accurately. Software bugs — especially from updates, malware and errors in programming — can lead to unpredictable inaccuracies. Cuyahoga County now conducts an audit after every election, using paper ballots, which most Pennsylvania counties are unable to do.

Editorials: Michigan recount reveals voting outrages | The Detroit News

With the move to recount Michigan’s presidential ballots still tangled up in the courts, we may never know for sure whether it might have changed the outcome of the election. But we did learn some outrageous things about the state’s electoral process. The key revelation is that the system in many places is rife with incompetence that results in the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters who cast ballots that don’t get counted. In Wayne County, for example, one-third of the ballots cast on Nov. 8 would not have been eligible for recount because of handling irregularities; in the city of Detroit, it was half the votes. Had the recount been allowed to proceed, it would have been useless without those ruined Detroit and Wayne County ballots, and others from Genesee County and elsewhere.

North Carolina: Senate passes controversial merger of ethics, elections boards | WRAL

The state Senate has signed off on legislation that creates a single board to oversee the state’s ethics, lobbying and elections administration. Republican sponsors insist it is aimed at creating a bipartisan panel to oversee all decisions on lobbying, elections and ethics rules. But that eight-member board would need six votes to take any action, something critics say would bog it down and make it less able to act. Senate readies elections, ethics overhaul “That will require bipartisan cooperation,” said Sen. Tommy Tucker, R-Union. The idea, he said, would be to encourage consensus decisions. The measure passed 30-16 and is now headed to the House for consideration. Deliberations were interrupted by protestors who at various times laughed, clapped or expressed disapproval. After a third interruption, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest ordered the visitor’s gallery cleared. That provoked an even louder outburst followed by chanting once the doors were finally locked.

Michigan: Records: 95 Detroit poll books missing for several days | The Detroit News

Detroit elections officials waited several days to deliver nearly 100 poll books to Wayne County officials charged with certifying the presidential election, newly released documents show. County clerk officials on Thursday released a memo to State Elections Director Chris Thomas that said 95 poll books from the 662 precincts weren’t available at the start of the canvass, which began the day after the Nov. 8 election. Five of those poll books, which contain the names of voters and ensure the integrity of elections, were never delivered to county canvassers and presumably remain missing. The revelation comes atop other irregularities that have prompted a state audit. Among other issues, The Detroit News reported this week that voting machines registered more votes than they should have in one-third of all city precincts.

North Carolina: Proposal to split elections boards between political parties moves ahead | News & Observer

A proposal to combine North Carolina’s elections, ethics and lobbyist regulation, among other provisions, was approved in the Senate on Thursday. Republican legislators who wrote Senate Bill 4 describe it as an effort to make elections oversight bipartisan. But the result would be to deprive the incoming Democratic administration of control of state and county elections boards. After Senate Republicans won a 30-16 vote along party lines, the bill was sent to the House. The Republican-led General Assembly called itself into special session on Wednesday and has been considering major changes to state government operations. SB 4 would replace the current State Board of Elections with the current eight-member State Ethics Commission. The new board would assume lobbying regulation duties from the Secretary of State. It would be run by the current director of the state elections office, Kim Strach, until a new board is seated in July and choses a director.

Illinois: DuPage County proposes merger of clerk, Election Commission | mySuburbanLife

A long-gestating piece of DuPage County reform may finally see its day on the voting block in Springfield, as the County Board chairman, clerk and Election Commission have proposed the consolidation of the latter two offices. Chairman Dan Cronin formally introduced the idea during the Dec. 14 board meeting, saying the move could both realize savings for the county as well as keep and expand the appointed, bipartisan Board of Election Commissioners. “When it comes to elections, there’s something very sacred about it,” Cronin said. “We here in DuPage County want to make sure we have the faith and trust and confidence of the public.” The proposal, which will need to be approved by the state legislature, would expand the board from three to five members, including two representatives from each major political party, appointed by the County Board chairman, and the county clerk as chairman.

Michigan: Too many votes in 37% of Detroit’s precincts | The Detroit News

Voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have during last month’s presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News. Detailed reports from the office of Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett show optical scanners at 248 of the city’s 662 precincts, or 37 percent, tabulated more ballots than the number of voters tallied by workers in the poll books. Voting irregularities in Detroit have spurred plans for an audit by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office, Elections Director Chris Thomas said Monday. The Detroit precincts are among those that couldn’t be counted during a statewide presidential recount that began last week and ended Friday following a decision by the Michigan Supreme Court. Democrat Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly prevailed in Detroit and Wayne County. But Republican President-elect Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes or 47.5 percent to 47.3 percent.

Editorials: 3 Reforms for America’s Vulnerable Democracy in Light of the 2016 Election | Robert Schlesinger/US News

The end is near. All remaining political disputes – recounts, in this case – must be wrapped up by Tuesday, six days before Dec. 19 when the members of the Electoral College meet in their respective states and ratify Donald Trump’s election to the presidency. The last procedural twitches of controversy from the 2016 election, in other words, are drawing to their inevitable close. But the book closing on the 2016 elections is a good time to take stock and consider reforms that this year has made painfully clear the system needs. After all, this election has inarguably highlighted serious vulnerabilities in the political system that need to be remedied because they are not unique to this year. I’ve got three common-sense ideas on that score. The first two reforms we ought to undertake are interrelated and have to do with ensuring the security, and thus the legitimacy, of the vote, whether from error – manmade or mechanical – or malicious attacks.

National: A ‘Political Horror Show’ of Recounts, 16 Years After Hanging Chads | The New York Times

The recount of the presidential election ended on Wednesday night as abruptly as it had begun. By Thursday, workers were packing away canvas bags of ballots, board records and tables and chairs. A legal battle halted proceedings before all of Michigan’s votes were counted again, but not before a flood of perplexing peculiarities emerged. An effort to recount the votes here and in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin led by Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, was never viewed as very likely to change Donald J. Trump’s election to the presidency, but it revealed something else in stark terms: 16 years after a different presidential recount in Florida dragged on for five agonizing weeks, bringing the nation close to a constitutional crisis, recounts remain a tangle of dueling lawyers, hyperpartisanship and claims of flawed technology. States still have vastly different systems for calling recounts and for carrying them out. Counting standards are inconsistent from state to state, and obscure provisions, like one in Michigan that deems some precincts not “recountable,” threaten to raise more public doubt about elections than confidence. Some of the most basic questions — is it better to count by hand, or with a machine? — have not been settled.

Voting Blogs: Election Administration Woes and Not Just “Hoping for the Best” | More Soft Money Hard Law

For all the talk about weaknesses in the electoral systems–about voter fraud or hacking or machine failure, or all of the above–experience with these types of claims or concerns suggests that, as matters of general public debate, they will soon fade. The rhetoric may linger, but little of use, such as practical reforms, is likely to follow. This does not have to be the way the story ends. Six years ago, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration suggested at least two potentially helpful measures, one very concrete and urgent, and the other pressing but more politically complicated and so harder to execute. These reforms won’t satisfy everyone: they offer only so much to those with the darkest suspicions. But they would make a major difference in preventing a calamitous breakdown in the voting process and an even greater collapse of public confidence.

Editorials: Accuracy About Voting — Needed on Both Sides of Debate | Ned Foley/Medium

This recent tweet from Professor Larry Tribe caught my eye: “Call it what you like, but the # of voters turned away for not having required forms of ID exceeded margin of T’s victory in MI, Pa & Wis” As soon as I read it, I said to myself, “That can’t be right.” First of all, no voter ever should be “turned away” for lack of ID. Instead, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) requires that voters lacking required ID receive a provisional ballot. To be sure, some poll workers may fail to enforce the mandates of HAVA, but in volumes exceeding Trump’s margins of victory in Michigan (about 11,000), Wisconsin (about 23,000), and Pennsylvania (about 44,000)??? If there had been a massive failure of election administration on that scale, which could have accounted for the outcome of the presidential election, presumably we would have heard news reports of it by now. Just because voters cast provisional ballots does not mean, of course, that those provisional ballots will be counted. In some states, a voter who casts a provisional ballot because the voter lacked a required form of ID is not permitted simply to sign an affidavit to get the ballot counted, but instead within a limited period of time must find a way to get the required ID and show it to local election officials.

Kansas: Botched balloting keeps tiny Kansas town from dissolving | Associated Press

The central Kansas town of Frederick has dwindled over the decades to just 10 people, and its only real expense is a $55-a-month electric bill for a half-dozen or so street lights that illuminate the unpaved streets. For a community with nine registered voters, the tally at the ballot box last month was 13-7 in favor of keeping Frederick a third-class city. The three workers at the polling place 5 miles to the west handed out the wrong ballots to some voters living outside the city. Local and state officials, at a loss for what to do, are letting the results stand. Either way, it’s unclear whether anything will change for Frederick’s residents. Just off a state highway about 75 miles northwest of Wichita, this city-in-name-only has no approved budget and didn’t elect anyone to any office in its last municipal election in 2015.

Verified Voting Blog: Election Security Is a Matter of National Security | David Dill

State-sponsored cyber-attacks seemingly intended to influence the 2016 Presidential election have raised a question: Is the vulnerability of computerized voting systems to hacking a critical threat to our national security? Can an adversary use methods of cyber-warfare to select our commander-in-chief?

A dedicated group of technically sophisticated individuals could steal an election by hacking voting machines key counties in just a few states. Indeed, University of Michigan computer science professor J. Alex Halderman says that he and his students could have changed the result of the presidential election. Halderman et al. have hacked a lot of voting machines, and there are videos to prove it. I believe him.

Halderman isn’t going to steal an election, but a foreign power might be tempted to do so. The military expenditures of a medium-size country dwarf the cost of a multi-pronged attack, which could include using the internet, bribing employees of election offices and voting machine vendors, or just buying voting machine companies. It is likely that such an attack would not be detected, given our current election security practices.

What would alert us to such an attack? What should we do about it? If there is reason to suspect an election result (perhaps because it’s an upset victory that defies the vast majority of pre-election polls), common sense says we should double-check the results of the election as best we can. But this is hard to do in America. Recount laws vary with each state. In states where it is possible to get a recount, it often has to be requested by one of the candidates, often at considerable expense.

In the recent election, it is fortunate that Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein, citing potential security breaches, recently requested a recount of the 2016 presidential vote in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and plans to do so in Michigan. Donald Trump unexpectedly won these three states by very narrow margins, and their recount laws are favorably compared with some of the other swing states.

Maine: Without evidence, LePage tells lawmakers he can’t attest to election tallies | Bangor Daily News

Gov. Paul LePage has sent newly elected legislators to Augusta a form letter saying he “cannot attest to the accuracy” of Maine’s recent election results, but doesn’t cite any specific evidence of fraud, and no major voting problems were reported in the state. The letter, which was posted on social media by Democratic lawmakers on Thursday, turned a mere formality into a political statement, with the Republican governor doubling down on past doubts about the integrity of Maine’s election system. Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, a Democrat, said LePage is “continuing that widespread mythology of widespread voter fraud,” saying Maine saw only isolated cases of voting issues on Election Day, none of which amounted to fraud. “I think the integrity of the election is absolutely not in question,” Dunlap said. “I’ve asserted that a hundred times, and I’ll assert it another hundred times.”

The Gambia: Officials engage in a count of marbles to determine the winner | Africanews

Gambia’s election Polls closed at 1700 on Thursday when officials began the process of counting the marbles that voters had cast for one of three presidential candidates. Voters on Thursday queued at polling stations all day to place a marble in one of three coloured ballot drums – green for President Yahya Jammeh, grey for Barrow and purple for the third candidate – former ruling party deputy Mama Kandeh. Gambian officials say the system is designed to avoid spoiled ballots and to simplify the process for illiterate voters. State Television announced results from two constituencies outside the capital Banjul showed a slight lead for Jammeh and opposition leader Adama Barrow close behind. Gambian authorities had cut the internet, barred international calls and sealed land borders. The election poses the first serious challenge to President Yahya Jammeh since he seized power in a coup 22 years ago.

National: Why is the U.S. voting infrastructure so fractured? | Center for Civic Design

I see you have questions about how elections work in the United States. Up until now, you probably haven’t thought much about how elections work and why someone’s experience in Massachusetts could be so different from yours in Alabama, or Florida, or Georgia, or Arkansas, or Montana, or Michigan, or Nevada, or California. You want to know why we’re not all doing the same things the same way. You want to know why there is no federal standard for ballot design or a national voting system. You want to fix things. Welcome. I’m glad you’re here. Let’s lift the curtain a bit on how U.S. elections get done. That should help you be involved in the right way at the right time to make elections better. From the 40,000-foot level, elections look roughly the same from state to state. This might lead you to think that because we end up with one result that the way elections are administered is pretty much the same across the country. But it’s not. If you move from Washington State to New York State, your experience and the process for registering, getting access to a ballot, and actually marking the ballot will be different, from one to the other.

Louisiana: Investigation of Jefferson Parish ‘VIP’ voting machine now in DA’s hands | NOLA

A report by the Louisiana secretary of state’s office on the use of a Jefferson Parish voting machine reserved for “VIPs” has been turned over to the district attorney’s office. The state office would not release the findings of its election compliance unit on Tuesday (Nov. 29), however, citing a Louisiana law that shields “records pertaining to pending criminal litigation or any criminal litigation which can be reasonably anticipated” until the case is closed. The machine had been kept in a private conference room at Registrar of Voters Dennis DiMarco’s office in Elmwood during the early voting period leading to the Nov. 8 elections. It was not available to the general public. DiMarco said he and some of his staff let certain people use it to avoid waiting in line.

North Carolina: State board to counties: Keep counting | WRAL

County election officials should keep counting votes from the Nov. 8 election despite numerous protests, the State Board of Elections ruled Tuesday afternoon. It’s unclear whether lawyers for Gov. Pat McCrory or Attorney General Roy Cooper won the day at the conclusion of the three-hour dive into election minutia. The Republican incumbent and his Democratic rival have been battling over election results that give Cooper a roughly 6,100-vote edge. A written order that was to be issued later Tuesday will likely clarify matters on all sides. However, it is all but certain that this is not the last time the two sides will clash. The five-member state board did not look at individual cases Tuesday. Rather, the board wanted to give counties broad guidance about how to handle certain categories of voters, including those who cast ballots and then died or those who may have been on probation for felony crimes when they voted.

Wisconsin: Discrepancies in unofficial Outagamie County election results explained | WBAY

Some people took to social media after finding discrepancies in some Outagamie County election results. In four out of almost a hundred wards, the number of votes cast in the presidential race were greater than the number of ballots voted, that’s according to unofficial election results. The Towns of Cicero and Grand Chute along with the Villages of Bear Creek and Hortonville are where unofficial election results showed less ballots cast overall, than the number of total votes in the presidential election. The discrepancies led some to take to social media, questioning what happened, calling for a Hillary Clinton victory. In a statement to Action 2 News, explaining the discrepancy in Hortonville, Lynn Mischker, the Village Clerk-Treasurer wrote, “In order to give election returns to the Outagamie County Clerk’s office as quickly as possible the Chief Inspector added together the votes from the election machine tapes. An error was made while keying the numbers on the calculator during this process resulting in an incorrect number of votes reported on Election night.

California: This is why it takes so long to count votes in California | Los Angeles Times

In an era when there’s almost nothing that can’t be found out quickly, the long wait for final results from an election in California feels interminable. And yet, there’s a pretty simple reason why it takes so long to count all the votes. California is not just home to more voters than any other state in the U.S. But it also has more election laws designed to maximize a voter’s chances of casting a ballot. “We don’t put up any of the barriers that you see in other states,” said Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation. Lawmakers through the years have taken a decidedly pro-voter approach when enacting new election laws, none more consequential than the expanded use of absentee voting. In some states, you still need a good reason to not show up in person on election day.

North Carolina: Voting complications expected to delay outcome of races | News & Observer

Uncertainty over how many as-yet uncounted votes will be added to the results of last week’s election is not likely to be resolved by Friday’s deadline, delaying the outcome of close races for governor and other offices. Counties are dealing with several complications, including election protests and accommodating a late court order to count the votes of those who say they registered at motor-vehicle offices but did not show up on voter rolls. County elections boards are permitted to extend their vote canvassing, which was to occur Friday, and many if not all are expected to do that, state elections board spokesman Patrick Gannon said. The state board can delay its final certification of the votes by up to 10 days past its own due date of Nov. 29 if some counties don’t report to the state by then, which would postpone the final outcome until Dec. 9.

National: After a Fraught Election, Questions Over the Impact of a Balky Voting Process | The New York Times

So few Americans cast ballots that a new president was elected by barely a quarter of Americans eligible to vote. Some of those who did vote waited in line for hours. Others were told they needed an ID to vote under a law the courts had nullified months ago — and sometimes, under laws that never existed to begin with. Amid the ruins of the ugliest presidential campaign in modern history, Democrats are bemoaning an election apparatus so balky and politically malleable that throngs of would-be voters either gave up trying to cast ballots or cast ones that were never counted. This was the first presidential election in a half century that was held without the full protection of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Voting rights advocates spent the year in court battling, with incomplete success, to roll back restrictions on the franchise enacted by Republican legislatures in state after state. Some scholars and election analysts questioned this week whether a better run and less politically influenced voting process might have changed the outcome in some close races and made the presidential contest even closer. The headline example is Wisconsin, where a Republican-backed law requiring voters to produce one of a limited number of acceptable photo IDs was in effect for the first time. Studies show — and some Republicans admit — that such laws disproportionately reduce Democratic turnout because many of the laws require IDs that low-income and immigrant voters, who are often Democrats, frequently lack. In Milwaukee, where turnout dropped 41,000 votes from the 2012 total, the chief elections official said on Friday that declines in voting were greatest in areas where lack of IDs was most common. Donald J. Trump won Wisconsin by about 27,000 votes.

Rhode Island: Pawtucket officials demand answers after ‘historic failure’ on Election Day | The Valley Breeze

City officials say they won’t soon forget the “historic failure” of the 2016 election in Pawtucket, saying they don’t want to see the interminable lines and disenfranchisement of voters ever again. The City Council is asking the Rhode Island Secretary of State and Board of Elections for an explanation of what happened in Pawtucket, which saw the worst of the problems across the state on voting day. Councilor Mark Wildenhain said the problems were consistent all day, with people waiting five minutes to vote and then two hours or more to get that vote registered by putting it through the machine. In some polling locations, residents ripped up their ballots and left, he said. Police nearly needed to break up a fistfight at the St. Cecilia Church polling place. … Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea said in a statement Monday that “the delays experienced in Pawtucket on election day were unacceptable.”

Editorials: I’m Blind And I Voted. Here’s What Went Wrong | Ross Doerr/WBUR

The good news is that voting, as an American tradition, is alive and well. The bad news is that the disenfranchisement of people with disabilities — also a tradition in this country — is, too. I experienced it firsthand last Tuesday in Augusta, Maine, when I attempted to exercise my constitutional right to vote. I am a disability rights attorney who happens to be blind. Neither blindness nor accessible voting systems are new to me: I have been blind since childhood, and I was a driving force in the implementation of the accessible voting system component of the Help America Vote Act in Maine and New Hampshire. On Tuesday, when I went to vote, the problems were immediate: It took two people from the city clerk’s office a half hour to get the accessible voting machine working. Once it was ostensibly functioning, it would not accept my selections on the first try — or the second, third or fourth. In fact, not until my fifth attempt. Did nondisabled voters need to wrestle their paper ballots into compliance like this? Roughly 35 minutes after I had begun voting, my ballot was complete — or so I thought.

Arizona: Phoenix election official dumped for long voter lines | Associated Press

The county official who took the blame for hours-long lines that plagued this year’s presidential primary in Arizona was dumped from office amid widespread frustration among voters over the bungled election. Republican Helen Purcell conceded on Tuesday to Democrat Adrian Fontes in the Maricopa County recorder’s race. The county was still tallying ballots but she was nearly 13,000 votes behind when she acknowledged the loss. Purcell, 81, was first elected in 1988 and never before challenged for re-election while serving seven four-year terms as county recorder. Her decision to cut the number of polling places for the March election caused voters to wait more than five hours to cast their ballots. Purcell and Secretary of State Michele Reagan were blamed for the foul-up, but Purcell became the most public face for the decision.

Voting Blogs: Durham County’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Election Day | Election Academy

As I mentioned yesterday, Election Day went very smoothly for most of the nation – which is good for the country and the election community, but can be uncomfortable for any jurisdictions where problems do arise because they tend to stand out. It can be even more difficult when the problems arise in a state where results are being closely scrutinized for their political impact. Meet Durham County, North Carolina. The county election office has already seen its share of problems this year; the office is under the supervision of an acting director after the current director went out on medical leave. Before that, there was a controversy following the March primary where provisional ballots were mishandled and/or went missing – which resulted in resignations and has since been referred to the DA and now the State Bureau of Investigation. The November election didn’t go well, either.

National: Voters in key states endured long lines, equipment failures | USA Today

Tens of millions of Americans who descended on the polls Tuesday faced hours-long lines, sporadic equipment failures and confusion about polling places — but little of the violence or vigilantism that had been feared. Problems cropped up in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and other key battleground states that would decide whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump wins the presidency. Most involved election administration issues that have plagued the polls for decades, however, rather than incidents of voter fraud or intimidation fueled by Trump’s warning of a “rigged” election. A coalition of more than 100 civil rights and voting rights groups running a national election protection hotline reported that 40% of its calls came from African American and Hispanic communities, a possible indication that minority voters were being targeted. The majority of complaints came from California, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, with Florida seeing particularly high levels of voter misinformation. “There is tremendous disruption at the polls today,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “This election may be the most chaotic election … in the last 50 years.”

National: Voters encounter problems, but not the ones most feared | Pro Publica

For all of the ways the 2016 presidential election was extraordinary – particularly Donald Trump’s repeated assertion that the vote was being “rigged” – the actual balloting on Tuesday was largely without serious incident. “Despite expectations this would be an unusual election, this election largely played out as previous presidential elections,” said David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “Sporadic problems here and there, but election officials were remarkably well-prepared, and this resulted in a largely smooth Election Day.” There were problems with voting equipment in counties from New York to California, and scattered reports of voter intimidation. But for the most part, the fears that a bitterly contested race would translate into a chaotic Election Day were unrealized.

National: Long lines, machine snags but major voting problems scant | Associated Press

Voters around the country faced long lines, occasional broken machines and some hot tempers Tuesday, but as the polls closed from one coast to the other, there were no signs of the large-scale fraud, intimidation or hacking some had feared. The scattered problems mostly involved the sort of glitches that arise in every election, including discrepancies in the voter rolls, with no indications of any snags big enough to meaningfully alter the vote count. “The biggest surprise is how uneventful things have been with this large a turnout,” said Illinois State Board of Elections spokesman Jim Tenuto. “Everyone was expecting more problems than this — and nothing.”