Update: New Voting Machines Mostly Well Received in Port

Despite challenges at other polling sites in New York, Port Washington residents voting in Tuesday's primary seemed to take the new electronic voting machines in stride.

The light turnout seemed to help, allowing coordinators to explain the process to residents without causing any backlog of voters. And the machines seemed to be operating just fine.

Only a handful of voters were at the polls at 2:15 p.m at John Philip Sousa Elementary School . By then 139 people had cast votes, out of about 700 registered to vote at Sousa. "Primaries are usually light," said Carl Lalena, the polling coordinator, adding that he expected a bigger turnout later in the day as people returned home from work.

"We've had no conflicts," Lalena said. "It's going smoothly."

Still, not everyone was enamored with the process.

"I didn't like it," said Gy Dioguardi. The instructions, he said, were text heavy. "A diagram on the back of the ballot would have been beneficial, especially for registered voters who don't speak English," he said. Dioguardi wasn't sure he marked the ballot properly, though the machine accepted it. Still, he wondered if his vote would be counted correctly.

"It was a couple of extra steps," Tony Durso said. "The workers were very courteous."

But Hank Ratner saw no problems with the new machines. "There were no hanging chads. No problems," he said. "It's voting for dummies."

By 5:25 p.m. at the officials had seen 33 voters. They expected a bigger turnout, given the new machines, but reported no problems. One voter, however, thought the new system might be more complicated on a ballot that had more people on it. 

At 6 p.m., Guggenheim Elementary School had seen 210 voters at its three machines, said George Bleckman, the polling coordinator. And although about two out of every 10 voters might have had questions, the system worked smoothly, added Roman Linares, who chaired the election group.

"It seemed to register my vote almost instantaneously," said voter William Whitely.

By the end of the evening, about 298 votes were cast at Sousa, and 300 at Guggenheim. There were no reported problems. Report from the fire station still to come.

Rachel Bialer contributed to the reporting.