DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — Casting ballots: no major problems so far.

Counting ballots: that could be quite a different story.

Montgomery County Board of Elections Director Steve Harsman said complete, unofficial results might not be available until Wednesday afternoon.

"It's going to be a long night," he said about 3 p.m. Tuesday.

Harsman said about half of all voters chose to use paper ballots instead of touchscreen machines. Because the county uses touchscreen machines, handling paper ballots will be a "laborious, tedious process."

Harsman expected 120 to 140 people to work through the night, hand-feeding paper ballots through scanners. He said he might call for reinforcements.

The process for counting paper ballots includes removing each one from its envelope, properly accounting for the ballot, removing the stub for record-keeping and then hand-feeding it into a scanner.

Counties that use optical scan machines as their only voting method have the ballots scanned when the voter finishes in the booth, speeding up the process.

Election officials at a sample of polling places visited by the Dayton Daily News through early afternoon said voters showed a distinct preference for voting by machine. Some people opted for paper ballots to avoid lines, but a strong majority used the electronic touchscreens.

Poll workers at West Carrollton precinct B said about six of the 50 people waiting in line when the polls opened wanted paper ballots.

"Most people wanted to use the machines. They thought the paper ballots might take longer to fill out," said poll judge Randy Brown.

The story was the same at the Huber Heights Church of God and at the YMCA in Fairborn in Greene County.

Presiding election judge Jan Schroeder at Huber Heights precinct 6-B said there was a line snaking down the hallway of the church shortly after the polls opened at 6:30 a.m. "We were estimating a two-hour wait at the start of the day, and some people got in the shorter line for the paper ballots then," Schroeder said. "But it's been at least four-to-one in favor of the machines."

She said when the crowds slacked off by late morning and there was no waiting at the voting machines, voters stopped asking for paper ballots.

All the polling in the county opened on time, though a few had problems with voting machines. Troubleshooters are available who can reach any polling place within 15 minutes of a problem report, Harsman said.

About 31,000 people had voted early at the Board of Elections office this year, including over 3,000 who voted on Monday. Combined with about 50,000 who voted absentee that represents about 20 percent of registered voters, and Harsman said he expects another 60 percent to vote at the polls today.