NPR has a really neat story about voting by Democrats abroad, who are voting in both overseas polling places and using the Internet.

The Boards of Elections in Virginia and Texas have received record amounts of calls from voters today asking why their pollsites weren’t open. They were informed that Election Day for their respective state is not in fact today. These are some eager voters!!

Mark Blumenthal and Charles Franklin have a piece today in Slate Magazine explaining why exit polls in California are meaningless. The short version:

Poll junkies beware: California exit polls are not to be trusted.

California has issued 5.5 million absentee ballots for today’s primary, reaching more than one-third of the 15.7 million total voters registered in the state. As of yesterday, 3 million ballots had already been returned, and state officials expect about 75 percent of the ballots to be returned by the close of polls—that’s 4.125 million people who voted without pulling a lever. (These numbers include both Democratic and Republican ballots.) The remaining ballots are expected to be turned in at polling stations today, just like you drop off a movie rental.

For our purposes, it’s the 3 million ballots that have already been sent back that may play havoc with expectations tonight. Exit polls, as their name implies, measure only the opinions of residents who go to the polls and submit a ballot. If you don’t show up to the voting booth, you’re not going to be part of an exit poll.

The bottom line: given that early voters are suspected to have broken toward Clinton, Obama could be “winning” in an exit poll but lose the election.

What is it about elections that bring out the best in voters and election judges? This is perhaps the best story I have seen about elections since the voting machine took a beating in Cuyahoga County in 2006. Clearly, one judge was pretty adamant about the rules of the election!

An election judge was charged with battery Tuesday morning after punching another judge at a 42nd Ward West Loop polling place, according to Chicago police. The female judges, whose party affiliations were not immediately known, were quarreling over “procedures” when one punched the other in the face, said Central District Capt. Joseph Vaclavik. The judge who was punched, believed to be in her mid-50s, was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for evaluation, Vaclavik said.

The other, in her late 30s, whose name was not released, was charged with misdemeanor battery, Vaclavik said. He could not elaborate on the procedural matter that sparked the fight. The incident occurred about 9 a.m. at the polling station at the headquarters for Local 134 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 600 W. Washington Blvd.

The brawl between the two judges was the culmination of a clash that had been raging for years, fellow poll workers said.

So the malfunctioning voting machines in Governor Corzine’s polling place were actually malfunctioning poll workers. Why am I not shocked? Here is the updated AP story.

New Jersey officials said Tuesday that they were getting more complaints than usual about problems at polling places , including some early-morning confusion at Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s polling place. Michael Harper, clerk to the Hudson County Board of Elections, said that when the first voter arrived at the Hoboken fire station where Corzine votes, an election worker did not press the right buttons to set the machine.

The worker called the Board of Elections, which talked her through the problem, Harper said. He said the worker was confused because different buttons are used for the primary election than in other elections.

Some media reports said that Corzine, who has endorsed U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, could not vote because of the problem. But his spokesman, Jim Gardner, said the governor was running late for other reasons and voted around 6:50 a.m , about a half-hour later than scheduled. Harper said when the governor did vote, he was in and out of the polling place in 2 1/2 minutes and was the 14th person to vote on that machine. Harper said another voting machine in the same firehouse was accidentally turned off soon after voting began at 6 a.m. and another machine had to be brought in to replace it.

After spending the better part of the day pollwatching, I’m back in the office checking the news for status reports of how Super Tuesday is going. Here are some stories.

• Georgia reports long lines, but mostly due to high turnout, not problems.
• New Jersey Governor’s voting delayed by polling problems.
• New York: Heavy Turnout, Few Problems
• Early ballots causing problems in AZ
• Oprah fixes voting glitch
• Independents facing voting problems in LA County; ballot bubble causing trouble
• Fist fight at pollsite in Chicago
• Voters turned away in South Carolina due to locked voting machines
• Super Bowl Parade hindering voting in New York

Hard to know, but here’s one indication: I went to a Pasadena-area polling place this morning at 7:45am, and saw at least four absentee ballots being dropped off in the two minutes I was at the polling place …

There’s a story in this morning’s Los Angeles Times with some interesting interviews with voters who have already cast their absentee ballots — for candidates who have dropped out of the race.

The only election problem noted online this morning is this story:

HOBOKEN — Gov. Corzine cast his vote in the state’s presidential primary after neither of the voting machines worked at his Hoboken polling place. Eyewitness News is told Corzine was originally scheduled to cast his ballot at 6:15 a.m at the Hoboken Fire Department Engine Company No. 2 on Washington Street. But the two voting machines didn’t work for about 45 minutes and about a dozen voters were turned away.

However, one machine was fixed, and Corzine arrived just before 7 a.m. to cast his ballot. The governor said the weather is holding up for the state’s first presidential primary in February. “We’re doing pretty well. We’re doing like the Giants,” Corzine said.

Looking on the New Jersey Secretary of State’s website, they list voting systems by county. Once you read the description below (taken from the vendor’s website), you will realize that the system in question combines ancient technology with all of the downside of full-face voting machines. These are not touchscreens but instead are, in essence, an electronic lever machine.

In continuous use since 1988, the AVC Advantage is a freestanding, full-faced DRE unit that combines the benefits of e-voting with the familiarity and speed of the full ballot display.

Voters simply make their selections electronically by pressing buttons on the ballot, voting confidently thanks to the unit’s advanced electronic accuracy and security. The AVC Advantage’s tactile voting switch visual indicator provides tangible feedback to the voter, confirming that it has correctly recorded the voter’s selections. Its large candidate area accommodates large type for easy-to-read ballots, and it is capable of recording write-in votes.

The AVC Advantage is manufactured with advanced, industrial-strength electronics and solid-state memory, with no disk drives or moving parts to fail. Designed to be easily maneuvered by just one person, the AVC Advantage rolls on four large rubber casters with a five-inch clearance and is quick and easy to set up.

Former Caltech student Erin Hartman (now a graduate student at UC Berkeley) was recently in Peru, and she sent along this link of some great photos she took of political advertising in Peru. Some of this material looks very similar to political communications I photographed recently in Argentina, especially in the Salta area.

Thanks for the photos, Erin!