COLUMBUS (WCMH) — Election Day got off to a rocky start Tuesday morning at one polling place on the West Side, with several delays for voters at Maranatha Baptist Church on Trabue Road.
Some of the first people to arrive said they got here shortly after 5 a.m. At 6:30 when the polls were supposed to open, workers told them they had misplaced a key to the voting machines. An hour later, the Franklin County Board of Elections sent a spare key and opened up everything.
“Very frustrating,” voter Lucy Markin said. “You’d think they’d have everything prepared and everything last night. Obviously, it wasn’t.”
Further delays were caused by Franklin County switching from electronic voter check-in to a backup system using paper. The Secretary of State’s office explained there was some initial confusion, but staff assures me everyone voted the correct ballot.
It took more than two hours for some of the first voters to cast their ballots.