So Far Voting Problems Appear Limited

There have been a lot of small problems reported so far today, but all in all they are not sounding really bad so far. There may be a few places where polling hours are going to be extended due to problems with equipment and a rash of smaller issues, but really not a huge mess anywhere being reported right now. The biggest problem is that any problem becomes an opportunity for partisan screaming. Which we really don't need. Turnout is being reported as heavy in a lot of places. There are a lot of blogs doing roundups right now, I won't try to add to what they are already doing. But in one of the weirdest incidents so far today, a poll worker in Kentucky has been arrested for choking a voter. It does not appear to have been a partisan issue according to police, merely an argument of filling out the ballot correctly.

It apparently started as a dispute between the two over marking the ballot, said Lt. Col. Carl Yates of the Jefferson County sheriff's office.

The voter told poll worker Jeffery Steitz that he didn't want to vote in a judicial election because he didn't know enough about the candidates, but Steitz told him he had to vote in the race anyway, Yates said.

Steitz, 42, eventually grabbed the man by the neck and threw him out of the polling place, Yates said.

"The poor guy went back in and he threw him out again," Yates said. "At least it wasn't over a Democrat or a Republican being on the ballot."

Election officials called police.

"That about tops off the day," said Paula McCraney, a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County clerk's office.

Man, are they strict in Kentucky.

UPDATE: Okay, problems do look like they are fairly bad in Denver today according to the Denver Post. That appears to be the worst one so far at least. The problems appear to be related to the heavy turnout according to officials:

Denver Election Commission spokesman Alton Dillard said there was no systemwide failures and that the delays were being caused by heavy voter turnout combined with "congestion" in the computer network used to confirm voter registeration. "it's our application. It got overloaded," Dillard said.