At least one-third of US voters were casting ballots on a hodgepodge of electronic voting machines never before used in general elections.
This year marks a federal deadline for change to modern technology, with New York and Connecticut the last in the country to use antiquated mechanical lever machines for a final time on Tuesday, and the US Justice department deploying a record 850 monitors to 22 states to guard against voter intimidation.
Some voters in western Pennsylvania, a key state for Democrats trying to break a 12-year stronghold by Republicans on Congress, reported problems with new touch-screen voting machines, Pittsburgh Channel 4 reported online.
But in Rockville, Maryland, voters were optimistic that their votes would count in another of the dozen or so key races for the US Senate that could propel Democrats into control of the upper house.
Analysts have said the opposition centre-left party could take over majority control in the lower House of Representatives in a midterm election largely seen as a referendum on the war in Iraq and the presidency of George W Bush.
Democrats only need to take 15 Congressional seats and six Senate seats to win control in both houses.
'We need any voice in congress against what's going on internationally,' Andrew Fedlam, 68, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa after casting his vote in a Maryland Democratic stronghold.
The razor-edge Maryland Senate race pits US representative Ben Cardin against Republican Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, an African-American who was making inroads into the affluent black population of Prince George's County outside the nation's capital. They are upset the Democrats were fielding yet another white candidate to fill an empty Democratic seat.
In Virginia a close Senate race could determine control of the upper house as a Republican incumbent fights off his challenger, a former Navy secretary who changed parties to run as a Democrat.
In increasingly Democratic-leaning Northern Virginia, voters lined up beginning at 6 am, many of them brought to the polls by the war and dissatisfaction with the Bush administration.
'I would have been one who said we shouldn't have gone there in the first place,' said Mark Black, 32. 'People who want more of the same didn't get my vote.'
Other voters said a ballot question in the state that would add a ban on gay marriage to the state constitution compelled them to vote. One woman cited 'family values' as key to her vote, while another expressed her opposition to 'taking away rights' from homosexual couples.
Close races, particularly in the Senate, could delay final results until Wednesday morning - or even later, if the outcome turns on the counting of a record 25 million absentee ballots. About 200 million voters, or one in 10 qualified voters, are expected to cast ballots.
Voting day began at 1100 GMT on the East Coast and ends at 0400 GMT Wednesday in Hawaii.
In many states, election day took on the aura of a community holiday as the 17-hour-long process moved across five time zones. Some schools even closed to serve as polling stations.
In Rockville, students from Richard Montgomery High School shivered in the damp cold outside a middle school election station, giving out Starbucks coffee and home made pastries in exchange for a donation. The money will be used to support the school's Tide student newspaper.
Ben Gittleson, the editor, proudly pointed to articles in the current edition about students working in campaigns for the Maryland state legislature - and about a French teacher at the high school running a tough uphill battle for a US Congress seat as a Green Party candidate against an incumbent Democrat.
Maryland's Green Party is made up of 'frustrated Democrats' and socialists, libertarians, anarchists, and even some Republicans, the teacher, Gerard Giblin, says in the Tide interview.
Since the chaotic 2000 election that saw Bush squeak into the White House on little more than 500 votes in Florida, the US Congress has tried to impose more unity on an election system decentralized into 50 states.
The record number of federal observers will determine 'whether any voters are challenged improperly on the basis of their race, colour, or membership in a language minority group,' the Justice Department said in a statement.
The targets, chosen on the basis of court alerts about possible racial intimidation in recent elections, include Cuyahoga County in Ohio, the focus of concern about vote manipulation in the closely fought 2004 presidential elections, when Ohio delivered Bush his last decisive votes.
Maryland, Arizona, Missouri, Florida, California, Texas and South Dakota are also at the top of the list for federal observers.
'We are in a period of intense partisan competition, when large districts can be decided by tiny numbers of votes,' said Doug Chapin of the nonpartisan Electionline organization based in Washington. 'We have as many as a hundred house seats, and a dozen senate seats, that could come down to literally a handful of votes.'
© 2003 - 2006 by Monsters and Critics.com, WotR Ltd. All Rights Reserved. All photos are copyright their respective owners and are used under license or with permission. * Note M&C cannot be held responsible for the content on other Web Sites.
Arts - Books - DVD - Forums - Home - Movies - Music - People & Celebrity - Science - Soundtracks - Sport - Tech - TV - World News
About Us - The Team - Advertise - Contact - Join the Team - Privacy - RSS Feeds - Site Map - Terms & Conditions - Webmasters
Servers supplied by Servint
