It’s now getting late enough in the day for initial reports to start to filter into the media of problems in the Illinois primary. But other than the election judge with her thumb stuck in the ballot scanner (who is oddly being helped by a candidate running for office), most of the reports indicate minor problems.

For example, WBBM radio in Chicago reports:

Earlier today, there were more glitches than usual in the early hours of voting.

Election officials said the problems were mainly logistical – election judges failing to show up, the wrong materials delivered to the precincts and other early bugs in the system.

If you do go to the WBBM site, make sure to listen to the short reprt there on “Changes in Voting Machines.”

The Chicago Tribune is collecting reports of problems, again which are troubling but not widespread.

I’ll keep updating this as the day progresses and additional reports come in.

UPDATE: 3:30pm (Pacific): A Chicago Tribute story from this afternoon reports “a few glitches”, and notes that the Illinois attorney general’s office reports “no widespread reports of election irregularities.”

UPDATE: 4pm (Pacific): A report from ABC 7 in Chicago had some interesting details about the Illinois primary:

• They do report some problems with the new voting equipment, but note that the problems have been isolated: “ABC7 News has received reports from about half a dozen precincts of optical scanners malfunctioning.”
• “On Chicago’s Northwest Side, an election judge somehow got her finger stuck in the machine as Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Edwin Eisendrath tried to vote. She eventually was okay.”
• Turnout is extremely low, especially in central Illinois were heavy snow kept voters at home.
• But here was an interesting report of attempts to confuse voters:
  

  Back on Chicago’s South Side, hooded men were handing out what they claimed were the official palm cards for the 11th Ward. But Cook County Commissioner John Daley warned voters that they were fraudulent.

  The blue card is the real deal. The red card is a phony.

  “These candidates on the ballot we are not supporting. You can see none of these candidates are on the sample ballot that we’ve given out,” said John Daley, Cook County commissioner.

This afternoon’s AP story also focuses on the low turnout, and reports of few technical problems.