LIVE UPDATES

12.55pm EST, Tuesday 6 November: The Tea Party-affiliated group True the Vote has been barred from observing voting at 30 polling places in predominantly African-American neighbourhoods in Columbus, Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch reports that the group's permission to act as official observers was withdrawn after the candidates who had supported the group's participation withdrew that support amid charges that the applications had been falsified. True the Vote has been accused of being on a mission to suppress Democratic-leaning minority voters across the country. The Dispatch story reports that "one person told the elections board that she attended True the Vote training sessions and the observers were instructed to use cameras to intimidate voters when they enter the polling place, record their names on tablet computers and send them to a central location, and attempt to stop questionably qualified voters before they could get to a voting machine."

11.57am EST, Tuesday 6 November: A Pennsylvania judge has ordered Republican operatives to stop demanding photo ID from voters outside an Allegheny County polling place. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that the judge ordered the electioneering to stop, saying partisans asking for ID “could have a chilling effect” on voting. Under a new Pennsylvania law, currently on hold, poll workers may ask for ID, but voters are not required to show it. Only official poll workers may legally request ID.

11.17am EST, Tuesday, 6 November: The Tampa Bay Times reports that hundreds and possibly thousands of voters in St Petersburg, Florida, got robocalls from the Pinellas County election supervisor's office telling them polls would be open till 7pm Wednesday. That's wrong, of course. Voting ends at 7pm tonight (Tuesday), and anyone trying to cast a vote after that would be out of luck. Voting officials blame a "glitch" in their robocall system.

10.56am EST, Tuesday, 6 November: The Palm Beach Post in Florida is reporting that voters are arriving at a polling place only to find it's been moved, apparently without notice. (Be sure to read the comments below the blog entries, where readers tell their own stories of voting problems. Some suspect voter suppression, others blame incompetence on the part of election officials.)


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