The New York Times reports that, due to the high volume of voters expected and new and different voting formats, problems at the polls are anticipated. They are not expected to be catastrophic to the level of Florida in 2000, however.
One of the primary “new” tools being used is a good old pencil and a paper ballot, which gets scanned through a machine either at the local voting location, or in a central office for the county. Concerns are similar to those you may remember from taking standardized tests in grade school: not filling in the circles well enough comes in at the top of the list. Ian Urbina writes:
Millions of voters will encounter an unfamiliar low-tech landscape at the polls on Tuesday. About half of all voters will vote in a way that is different from what they did in the last presidential election, and most will use paper ballots rather than the touch-screen machines that have caused concern among voting experts.
But the change does not guarantee a smooth election day, as the nation’s voting system remains untested for what is expected to be an unprecedented turnout. Six years after the largest federal overhaul in how elections are run, voting experts are still predicting machine and ballot shortages in several swing states and late tallies on election night.