First off, a great story about the tremendous voter protection work we did in Florida (patting self on back):

One of the untold stories of this election was the lengthy, and often under-the-radar, work by the Election Protection coalition that we were a part of -- winning court battles, organizing on the ground, and preventing potential election problems in the months and years before Election Day.  Folks like our Florida team did a tremendous job of making sure every voter had a chance to cast a ballot that counted.

We still have too much big money in our politics, too many deceptive practices in our elections, and too few companies controlling too many major media outlets.  We have a lot to do to continue to mold this beacon of democracy -- but yesterday was a big step forward in many, many ways.

It may not be glamorous, but there's something exciting about pictures like this -- what just one of the many Election Protection command centers look like around the country, with trained volunteers and legal professionals taking calls and logging it into our database for any follow up.

This is from LA, where polls remain open and calls continue to pour in.  You can view the breakdown of calls we've been getting all day at the OurVoteLive site.

After a day that featured few voter challenges at the polls -- a welcome break from 2004 -- we've just heard about intimidation in Lake County, home to Gary, Indiana, from one of our staff who is on the ground as a poll monitor.

Voters in Gary showed up with valid registration cards but were inexplicably left off the voting rolls.  At first they were turned away.  Then, when the county elections office decided to start letting people vote but to track them in a log to confirm their voting eligibility, two Republican attorneys who had been at multiple polling sites over the course of the day began challenging every one of these voters.

Most voters at most polling places in Ohio today have voted without trouble, save for generally long lines.  But the primary cause for concern in Ohio today has been provisional ballots, which has affected thousands of voters.  We picked up on this problem this morning.

The state board of elections and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner have been responsive, according to the Election Protection teams in Ohio.  Now the Assistant Secretary of State has, in fact, been dispatched to deal with the provisional ballot issue and is coordinating with all of their regional liaisons to work directly with local Boards of Election.  Two major problems have arisen:

Machine malfunctions--no surprise, given that New York continues to use lever machines that will finally be retired in the next couple years--are being reported at a higher rate than ever before at our New York election protection call center.  They've fielded nearly 300 calls on voting equipment problems, and some polling places in New York City have lines as long as four hours.

Upstate, meanwhile, the poll workers at a SUNY-Albany precinct were turning students away -- the problem has apparently been solved, but not before many students were rejected when they were inexplicably kept off the voting rolls:

A bit more on Ohio.  I just wrote about the wrongful use of provisional ballots, a repeat of a 2006 problem.

Turns out there's more in Ohio that mirrors 2006 and 2004: voters being inexplicably dropped from the rolls.

Ohio is facing the same problem they faced in 2006: voters being forced to cast provisional ballots when by law they should be casting regular ballots.

It's a frustrating problem; it's hard to tell how wide the scope of it is, but all signs point to a statewide issue.  Here are the basics: