Long Lines, Few Major Glitches At LA County Polling Places

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Residents heading to polling stations across Los Angeles County Tuesday were met with long lines and a few glitches as voters cast their ballot for the next president of the United States.

More than 4,500 polling places countywide opened at 7 a.m. for residents to vote for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton as well as a host of local and state ballot measures and congressional races.

An average time of between 10 minutes and 11 minutes was expected to fill out such ballots, which could result in long lines, the registrar's office warned earlier.

CBS2's Jeff Nguyen reported voters at one polling station in Van Nuys arrived to find no voting machines in place.

The machines had to be delivered by the sheriff's department and arrived more than two hours later.

"It's pretty outrageous that for this major of an election they didn't include one of the most essential pieces to vote," Kimberly Joval said.

Electronic voting machines were also reportedly down at Fire Station No. 5 in Costa Mesa, where all voting was done by paper as officials worked to resolve the issue.

As of Tuesday, there were 5,191,388 registered voters in the county, according to the Los Angeles County registrar's office.

In the 2012 presidential election, more than 70 percent of the county's 4,593,621 registered voters cast ballots, according to the office, down from nearly 82 percent of registered voters who weighed in during the 2008 election,
which resulted in Barack Obama becoming the nation's first African-American president.

Polls will remain open until 8 p.m. tonight.

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