The problems in Madison included hundreds of students whose names weren't on the poll books even though they were registered, long lines and confusion at a new polling site, and wards and voters with incorrect ballots.

The vote, expected to set records statewide and in Madison, came amid heightened attention to claims of potential fraud and voter suppression, and as a new statewide voter registration database was employed fully for the first time in a presidential election.

But election officials, law enforcement and political party officials reported no widespread fraud or suppression.

In Milwaukee, police were investigating seven absentee ballots as suspicious, and the state GOP was investigating whether an absentee ballot was cast under the name of a dead person. But a spokesman

for the state elections agency reported no major problems elsewhere.

Over all, the hiccups reported in Madison didn't suggest any sort of systematic attempt to perpetrate fraud or suppress the vote, said Katherine Cramer Walsh, a UW-Madison political science professor who studies voter participation.

"I like to tell myself there's little reason to worry unless there's evidence of systematic fraud," Cramer Walsh said. "Those stories sound like human error. Our election system is run by humans, bless their hearts."

3.2 million possible

It was a historic election, with voters across the country deciding whether to send the first African American to the White House or make the first woman vice president.

Wisconsin voters also were making choices for the state Legislature and Congress, while in Madison and elsewhere, school spending referendums were on the ballot.

State election officials expected a record turnout of 3.2 million voters in Wisconsin — with potentially a 50 percent increase in early balloting over 2004.

Dane County Clerk Bob Ohlsen said preliminary voting totals as of 4 p.m. suggested that the city of Madison and the rest of the county could surpass the high turnout in the 2004 election. For the city, that mark was 79.9 percent.

"I think we're going to beat that, but by how much I can't tell you," Ohlsen said.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen dispatched 50 lawyers and special agents across the state to observe elections and created a special task force in Milwaukee.

Meanwhile, hundreds of election observers from the two presidential campaigns, state political parties and groups that support them fanned out across the state to monitor the polls — confined under new rules this year.

Scattered problems

Many voters across the city reported smooth balloting, including those who had to wait in line.

But there were scattered reports of problems:

• Hundreds of UW-Madison students who were listed on the state's Voter Public Access Web site (vpa.wi.gov) as being properly registered to vote didn't appear on the poll books issued by the city of Madison, poll workers said.

At Gordon Commons on the UW-Madison campus, chief elections inspector Adam Young made an "executive decision" to allow those students to vote rather than force them to re-register or cast a provisional ballot.

"The voter did not make a mistake," Young said. "Someone else did, I don't know who it is, and I'm not going to penalize a voter."

Young said his poll workers were able to check the students' registration status online because his deputy brought two personal computers to the polling place.

Carol Weidel, chief inspector at the Madison School District's Doyle Administration Building, said voters there were affected, too. At first, election officials made them re-register but later brought in a computer and checked registrations on the VPA site.

"I'm sure some people were discouraged and left," Weidel said. "Sometimes people come and only have a little bit of time."

Kyle Richmond, a spokesman for the state Government Accountability Board, said Young did the right thing by allowing students to vote. Richmond said it's possible that the Madison clerk's office sent its poll list to the printer before entering all registered voters in the statewide database.

• With five wards voting for the first time at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church on McKenna Boulevard, lines were long and voters were confused, said Madison resident Jennifer Rosen Heinz. Voters were confined to the church's vestibule, she said.

"It was like cramming clowns into a Volkswagen," Heinz said.

• Middleton police evacuated Middleton High School shortly after 3 p.m. after receiving a bomb threat and moved the school's polling place to a nearby fire station.

• At least two voters reported not being asked to show proof of residence when they registered at the polls, a requirement when registering on Election Day unless the registrant has another registered voter from the same municipality who can vouch for him or her.

• Some voters were given the wrong ballots at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, while a package of ballots intended for the polling place at Jefferson Gracious Retirement Living was mistakenly delivered to the polling site at Jefferson Middle School.

Contact Mark Pitsch at 608-252-6145 or mpitsch@madison.com; Jason Stein at 608-252-6129 or jstein@madison.com; and Deborah Ziff at 608-252-6234 or dziff@madison.com. State Journal reporters Barry Adams and Ron Seely and The Associated Press contributed to this report.