Voting Problems Plague NYC Primary Election

As New York City's contentious primary campaign drew to a close Tuesday, some voters - including one leading mayoral candidate - encountered problems with the city's decades-old voting machines.

Turnout appeared light across the city, but scattered problems were reported to the Board of Elections. Some of the city's antiquated though beloved lever machines, which were hauled out of retirement to replace much-maligned electronic devices, jammed and others broke.

In one Manhattan polling precinct, the machines weren't there at all but were later found. The city's 311 complaint line had received several thousand voting-related calls by early afternoon, according to officials.

In some sites, the broken machines forced voters to use pen and paper to cast their ballot. Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota presumably wrote his own name when his machine broke at his Brooklyn polling place. Democrat Anthony Weiner, whose mayoral campaign was dogged by a persistent sexting scandal, also encountered a problem when poll workers were unable to locate his signature in their records. The issue was soon resolved.

The older machines were brought back this year after the introduction of the $95 million optical scanner system led to confusion and delays in 2012. Election officials believe the older machines will yield faster results and will also be used for a potential Oct. 1 runoff. The electronic machines will return for the November general election.

Other candidates had no trouble voting for themselves, including Democratic front-runner Bill de Blasio. De Blasio, the public advocate, is pitching himself as the cleanest break from Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration. And while just weeks ago his campaign was an afterthought, he now has a legitimate shot of surging right past the 40 percent mark that would avoid a runoff three weeks from now.

"He's the candidate that represents the most change," said Joshua Bauchner, 40, an attorney who voted in Harlem for de Blasio.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday, de Blasio was the choice of 39 percent of likely Democratic voters. If no one reaches 40 percent, the top two finishers advance to a runoff.

De Blasio's rise was as sudden as it was unexpected. He benefited from placing his interracial family at the heart of his campaign, connecting with voters over the need for NYPD reforms, and by drawing away voters from Weiner following the former congressman's latest scandal.

If de Blasio's support holds, the other spot in the potential runoff appears to be a matchup between City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former Comptroller Bill Thompson.

"I think she's got the experience from working with Bloomberg," said Lupe Moreno, 65, a real estate broker, who voted in Harlem for Quinn.

Quinn, who is bidding to become the city's first female and first openly gay mayor, led the polls for most of the year but has seen support disappear as her rivals have repeatedly linked her to the bitter debate to let Bloomberg run for a third term in 2009.

The mayor's opponent that year was Thompson, who stunned the political world by nearly upsetting the billionaire incumbent. The race's lone African-American, Thompson has said he is counting on winning the bulk of black and Latino voters to propel him to the runoff.

On Tuesday, Harlem voter Joe Beverly said he would not decide between Thompson and de Blasio until he was in the booth.

"Two very good candidates," said Beverly. "The most important issue to me is city economics and the disparity, the tale of two cities, rich and poor; stop and frisk the way the police act, and the future of the city."

Election experts estimate that minority voters will make up more than half the Democratic primary electorate. Most polls have Quinn and Thompson within a few points of each other.

Weiner jolted the race in May when he ended his self-imposed political exile that began when he resigned from Congress in 2011 after sending lewd online messages to women who were not his wife. He led the polls for nearly a month only to tumble when it was revealed that he had continued to send the explicit messages in the months after leaving office.

The comptroller, John Liu, is bidding to become the city's first Asian-American mayor but has been dogged by a fundraising scandal. He has been polling in the single digits.

Republicans will look to continue an improbable winning streak. Though outnumbered by Democrats in the city 6 to 1, the GOP has won the last five mayoral elections. Bloomberg was an independent running on the Republican line four years ago.

Lhota, the former MTA chairman who received acclaim for steering the transit agency through Superstorm Sandy last fall, has led the polls all campaign. A former deputy mayor to Rudolph Giuliani, Lhota has pledged to maintain the city's record low crime rates.

His primary challenger is John Catsimatidis, a billionaire grocery store magnate who has unleashed a series of blistering attack ads on Lhota, including one that mocks the front runner for dismissing Port Authority police officers as "mall cops." Catsimatidis has spent more than $4 million of his own money on the race, but that's a far cry from the $102 million Bloomberg spent four years ago.

Bronx voter Michael Horan, 59, a retired teacher who voted for Catsimatidis, asserted that Lhota "caused a transit strike. He got the fare up sky high and then he left." Horan also referenced the "insulting" depiction of "mall cops."

Bronx voter Fabian Feliciano, a 43-year-old city social services worker, called Lhota the best all-around candidate, adding, "He'll really take care of the middle class."

Also Tuesday, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer was trying to make a political comeback in the Democratic primary for city comptroller. Seeking to rebuild a political career devastated by a prostitution scandal, Spitzer took on Scott Stringer, Manhattan's borough president.

Polls close at 9 p.m.