The voting is on, but there appear to be problems already:

Programming errors and inexperience dealing with electronic voting machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts Tuesday, delaying voters in several states and leaving some with little choice but to use paper ballots instead.

In some states, there were allegations of something more sinister: Virginia election officials called in the FBI to investigate misleading phone calls to voters, and a prosecutor in Ohio urged voters to beware of similar scams.

Most of the voting machine problems surfaced as the polls were opening, and experts said they didn't see any catastrophic breakdowns.

In Cleveland, voters rolled their eyes as election workers fumbled with new touchscreen machines that they couldn't get to start properly for about 10 minutes.

"We got five machines - one of them's got to work," said Willette Scullank, a trouble shooter from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, elections board.

In Indiana's Marion County, electronic optical-scan machines that read paper ballots initially weren't working right in more than 100 precincts. Poll workers had trouble using a computer port to connect those machines to new touchscreen models, which handicapped voters use, County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler said.

Election officials in Delaware County, Ind., and Lebanon County, Pa., extended polling hours because of early machine troubles blamed on bad programming. In Colorado, Democratic Party officials said they would ask a state judge to keep Denver polling places open an extra two hours Tuesday because of long lines.

Unless there is a clear blow out, it is likely to be a long night, especially if the Democrats end up coming short in some key races. They do have a tendency to scream voter fraud and immediately engaged in litigation when such things happen, regardless of whether there is sufficient evidence to indicate that such a thing has compromised the election.