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Voting got underway an hour late at a Detroit polling location

Published  November 6, 2018 11:44am EST
News
FOX 2 Detroit

DETROIT (WJBK) - Voting got underway about an hour late at one polling location in Detroit this Election Day. 

Voters showed up at 7 a.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School in Detroit, expecting to be able to cast their ballots, but instead found an empty polling location. 

All of the volunteers arrived at the Precinct 129 location around 6 a.m., but none of the machines or polling booths had arrived yet. We're told the tabulators and seven voting booths didn't arrive until about an hour later. Workers had to quickly get everything set up, and voting then began about an hour behind schedule at 8 a.m.

"There were quite a few people that were not pleased, however, we told them to come back later and gave them a no-wait-in-line pass. So, hopefully that did not deter their vote," said election worker Andrea Mitchell. "It started out a little shaky today but we are very optimistic it's going to end on a good note and hopefully we have a very good turnout by the end of the night."

We're told there's been a steady stream of voters at that location since this morning, and voters around Metro Detroit have also reported busy polling locations. FOX 2 has also taken several calls from voters at other locations in Detroit about broken machines that aren't able to collect the ballots. 

If you experience a problem voting, you can let FOX 2 know by calling us at 248-552-5103, or by calling the NAACP's local hotline at 313-664-2424. The NAACP national voter hotline is 1-866-MY-VOTE-1. You can also report your issue to the Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

If you need to find your polling location, or want to preview what will be on your ballot, visit www.vote411.org. The polls are open tonight in Michigan until 8 p.m. You can see results as they start coming in online here.

As for the voting delay at thye school, election officials would only confirm there was a delay in getting the equipment to the school. They wouldn't elaborate about exactly what happened, and wanted to focus on using this as a learning experience so it never happens again.