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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: (Philly) BREAKING NEWS ALERT! - FOXNEWS: 'BLACK PANTHERS' BLOCK ACCESS TO VOTING STATION... DEVELOPING STORY -- Intimidation tactics, missing ballots and faulty machinery are plaguing voters descending on polling stations to choose between Barack Obama and John McCain. In Philadelphia, FOX News' Rick Leventhal received a report from Republican poll watcher Chris Hill that two Black Panthers had stationed themselves at the door to a polling station and were intimidating voters. One held a night stick, Hill said. Hill told FOX News that he went to talk to the men and they told him white power didn't rule there. The man reportedly carrying a night stick was escorted away from the polling station by police, and FOX News found another Black Panther outside the station who said he was a certified observer. Police asked him and the FOX News crew to leave the polling station. As of noon, FOXNews.com had received complaints from voters around the country that polling stations were not prepared, that voting lists were inaccurate and some voters were worried when they were asked to cast paper ballots instead of using voting machines. Gregory Holden reported that the voting list his polling station in Lugoff, S.C., had problems. "Many people who have always voted in this precinct are all of a sudden not on the roll," he said. "They only have five machines and there are about 300 people in line. People are so discouraged some are leaving," he wrote. Francesca Lourdes, in Maryland, said that she voted with three others, and the polling station where their official voter registration cards told them to vote didn't have them on the registers. She said they had to cast provisional ballots. Watchdog groups and government officials are telling FOXNews.com that voters are reporting a range of problems and that some polling places aren't able to handle the expected record turnout. According to Wendy Weisner, of the Brennan Center for Justice and non-partisan watchdog group Election Protection Center, the group has been receiving calls from voters experiencing problems with machine breakdowns around the country. In Virginia, there are reports from more than 40 polling stations where the election officials don't have paper ballots to distribute when electronic machines break down. In Pittsburgh and Philadelphia there are reports from voters of machines breaking down and no emergency paper ballots are being distributed. Voters in Palm Beach County, Fla., are reporting that optical scan machines are breaking down. An increasing number of problems are being reported with voting machines in Dayton, Ohio. In New York City, voters began lining up as early as 4 a.m. ET even though polls didn't open until 6 a.m., said Valerie Vazquez-Rivera, a spokeswoman for the city's Board of Elections. "We have a system that is traditionally set up for low turnout," said Tova Wang of the government watchdog group Common Cause. "We're going to have all these new voters, but not a lot of new resources. The election directors just have very little to work with." Polls along the East Coast opened at 6 a.m. and by 8 a.m. one polling station in Atlanta had already run out of paper ballots, according to Clare Schexnyder, media spokeswoman for Georgia Election Protection, a non-partisan watchdog group. She said the group had fielded more than 500 calls by 9 a.m. "We had one location [in Atlanta] where all of the machines went down this morning and they didn't come back up until 8:08 a.m. They had problems with cards kicking out and a voter not getting a chance to vote," Schexnyder said. About 2 million of Georgia's 5 million voters had cast ballots in early voting, she said, but that still leaves 3 million potential voters hitting the polls on Election Day. An election protection volunteer helped that voter cast her ballot, she said, but there were up to 100 voters in line at one point, waiting while the six machines were down. "They were voting with paper ballots during the time they were down and they ran out of paper ballots and had to switch to provisional ballots. They are provisional ballots that will be counted, but there was craziness at that one polling place." Virginia has also had its share of election mishaps, although the state is not yet reporting any incidences of fraud or voter intimidation. Voters are turning out to the polls in record numbers in spite of the weather, according to Susan Pollard, a spokeswoman for the State Board of Elections. "Although a light rain is falling across the state, it does not seem to have dampened turn-out. Lines have been reported at some polling places; however, voting is proceeding quickly at many others." The rain is causing an unexpected problem -- wet ballots don't feed properly into optical scan machines. "Poll workers are setting the wet ballots aside and drying them out and asking voters to dry off before they handle the ballots.To make sure you don't have any problem with your ballot going through the optical scanner, be sure to dry your hands before completing your ballot," Pollard said. "All votes will be counted." Three of the state's 2,349 polling stations opened late, two due to human error. One, at a library in Richmond, opened 25 minutes late because the librarian with the keys to the building overslept. While the North Virginia suburb of Arlington has had one wet ballot issue, so far county registrar Linda Lindberg describes voting as "smooth sailing." To assure that every voter gets a chance to cast a ballot, the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has sent more than 800 monitors to 59 jurisdictions in 23 states. Several have had problems in the past with minority voters or with providing personnel at polling stations where Spanish or Native American languages are spoken. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where the Feds have sent election monitors, voters reported 58 problems voting to OurVoteLive.org. In Ohio's Franklin County, Board of Elections spokesman Ben Piscitelli said officials again were dealing with typical glitches. "We're taking care of things like that," Piscitelli said. "But there's nothing major or systemic." Schexnyder, from Georgia Election Protection, said she doesn't expect the problems voters are reporting to keep them from casting their ballots, although many will wait. "We'll probably see problems all day as we see long lines, and any times you have computers connected to the equation, I think that every computer glitch we have is going to create longer lines," Schexnyder said. FOXNews.com's Jennifer Lawinski and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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#2. To: OliviaFNewton (#0)
Here is some "raw" video.
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