Voting disrupted in several US states during the midterms, with hours extended in places

Voting was disrupted in several states during the US midterm elections. Technical faults, bad weather and power outages delayed the start of voting at various polling centres, and in some places the polling hours were extended.

According to an Al Jazeera report, a technical glitch in a new security system delayed the start of voting by 20 minutes at various polling centres in Florida's Broward County. The problem arose when the security system failed to work properly at the time the centres opened.

North Carolina's election board is considering extending voting by one hour in seven counties of the state. The step was taken after widespread technical problems were reported in those areas.

Vote-counting machines also ran into problems in New York's Westchester County. The problem arose after the voting programme was updated once the initial preparation and testing of the election equipment had been completed, leaving the machines unable to accept paper ballots. The election board said, however, that all ballots would be counted even if they could not be counted by machine.

A polling centre set up at an elementary school in Arizona's Maricopa County was temporarily closed because of a power outage. No details were given about why the power went out.

Voting time was also extended in several counties of Pennsylvania. Because of problems installing and preparing the vote-counting machines, polling hours in those areas were extended by an additional 30 minutes.