Turnout high in key swing states

Millions of people are casting ballots Tuesday as the marathon campaign between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton reaches its conclusion.

Voter turnout has reportedly been high in swing states across the country, with ballot totals in many areas expected to exceed 2012’s.

Roughly 47 million Americans had already cast their votes before Election Day, during early voting windows, according to the nonpartisan Elections Project. Early voting could prove crucial in places like Florida and Nevada. 

The final polls of the presidential race indicated that Clinton enjoyed a slight lead over Trump, but as always, the results hinge on voter turnout. 

With weather generally mild across the country, there were reports that several states could be setting record voter numbers. In Michigan, absentee ballot returns, which typically account for about two-thirds of the state’s votes, were up 18 percent, according to mlive.com. 

Trump made a late play for Michigan, seeking the 16 electoral votes from what has long been a blue-leaning state.

In Pennsylvania, another crucial battleground, Secretary of State Pedro Cortes said he expects 80 percent of his state’s eligible voters to turn out. It could even beat the 1992 record, when 83 percent of the state’s voters cast ballots in the race between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

Election officials in several states warned about long lines, particularly during high-traffic times, but stressed that it would not prevent people from voting.

“There’s going to be lines. It’s a presidential election,” Jamie Fitzgerald, an auditor for Polk County in Ohio, told The Des Moines Register.

There had been sporadic reports of some issues at polling places, but nothing to suggest the issues were widespread or went unaddressed.

While voters in some states reported broken machines, there was no evidence that people were being turned away, according to independent observers at the ProPublica project Electionland. 

Experts say that broken machines should not affect a precinct’s ability to record or count votes. In most cases when machines are broken, voters use a paper ballot that will be manually tallied.

Many had feared problems at polling places on Election Day, with Trump repeatedly warning of a “rigged” election and widespread voter fraud. 

In an interview with Fox News Tuesday, Trump suggested there were reports of voter fraud emerging, though he wished for a “really, really smooth” process. 

“There are reports that when people vote for Republicans, the entire ticket switches over to Democrats. You’ve seen that. It’s happening in various places today,” he said. “We have to be careful. We have to see what it is.”

Trump later tweeted, “Just out according to @CNN: “Utah officials report voting machine problems across entire country.” 

CNN correspondent Jim Sciutto corrected Trump on Twitter, saying that CNN had reported voting machine problems in one Utah county, where paper ballots were used instead.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump’s campaign mounted a legal challenge to some votes cast during early voting in the battleground of Nevada. They said a polling place in Clark County had been improperly reopened to allow people to vote and asked that ballots from the precinct be separated and preserved for a possible future challenge.

The judge ruled against that legal maneuver, stating that voting records are already preserved by law. She added that the campaign failed to go through the proper channels to mount the complaint. 

There were some reported hiccups at some polling places across the country. Two Florida precinct clerks in Broward County were reportedly fired for an unspecified violation, and there were reports of some confusion about voter ID requirements in various states.

In swing-state North Carolina, officials in Durham County, which voted heavily for President Obama in past elections, requested extended voting hours by one hour following some technical problems with voting equipment. The state election board will reportedly consider the request later today.

In Pennsylvania, the Lebanon Daily News reported that a handful of voting machines showed votes for a Democratic straight ticket when a Republican ticket had been selected. Election officials said it was a “calibration issue,” and there was no evidence that any ballots had actually been filed incorrectly.

Early indications are that Clinton had an edge in get-out-the-vote efforts. A Morning Consult/Politico exit poll found that 17 percent of voters said they were contacted by her campaign, compared with just 8 percent who said they were contacted by Trump’s campaign.

Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Clinton, told NBC said her campaign was “pretty much elated” by the early results. The Trump team hit a similar note, saying it was optimistic about some of the numbers coming in from states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania. 

Both candidates cast their ballots on Tuesday in New York.