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 HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — President Obama and Mitt Romney hunted for last-minute support on Sunday in a frenetic sprint across battleground states, even as their parties faced off in the first of what could be a growing number of legal disputes over presidential ballots and how they are counted. 
 
 In Florida, the state’s Democratic Party filed a lawsuit on Sunday morning that would force the Republican-led government to extend early voting in South Florida after complaints that extremely long lines on Saturday had prevented some people from casting their ballots. The Republican-controlled Legislature cut back early voting, which ended Saturday, from 14 days to eight. 
 
 The lawsuit was followed by a chaotic day in the Democratic stronghold of Miami-Dade County, which opened one of its election offices for two hours to accept completed absentee ballots and then shut down only to reopen again on Sunday afternoon. Three counties said they would open again on Monday, but Democratic lawyers will continue to argue in court that in-person early voting should continue through Tuesday in Broward County. 
 
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 In Ohio, Republican election officials will go to court on Monday to defend an 11th-hour directive to local election officials that critics say could invalidate thousands of provisional ballots by forcing voters to attest to the type of identification they provide. 
 
 Together, the pre-election legal skirmishes were a potential preview of the clashes that could emerge in as many as a half-dozen swing states over Tuesday’s voting. The closeness of the races in those states has intensified the stakes of voter turnout, smooth operations at polling places, ballot problems and recounts. 
 
 In the battles, Republicans are mobilizing to defend against what they say is the potential for voter fraud, and Democrats are preparing to protect against what they say are efforts to suppress voting rights. 
 
 “The larger issue, in my view, is the scale of the effort that is required to have Election Day run smoothly,” said Robert Bauer, the chief counsel for Mr. Obama’s campaign. “Any number of things can go wrong, not by anybody’s fault or intention, but we are fully prepared and so, we believe, are election officials around the country.” 
 
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 On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney presented themselves as agents of change while painting the other as an obstacle — final arguments in a nip-and-tuck race that may hinge on the success of the campaigns’ elaborate turnout operations. 
 
 “The question of this election comes down to this,” Mr. Romney told a crowd of about 4,500 on Sunday morning in Des Moines. “Do you want four more years like the last four years, or do you want real change? President Obama promised change, but he couldn’t deliver it.” 
 
 Speaking to 23,000 people on a high school football field in Hollywood, Fla., Mr. Obama scoffed at Mr. Romney’s bid to claim the mantle of change, deriding him as a political quick-change artist who is repackaging the failed policies of previous Republican administrations. 
 
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 “When you make this choice, part of what you’re choosing is who do you trust,” Mr. Obama said. “After four years as president, you know me by now. You know I mean what I say and I say what I mean.” 
 
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 Racing the sun as well as the clock, both campaigns brimmed with confidence about their chances on Tuesday, though polls showed Mr. Obama holding a slender lead in several of the battleground states he needs to win the Electoral College. That advantage was evident in the itineraries of the two men on Sunday. 
 
 While each covered familiar ground from New Hampshire to Ohio, Mr. Romney sought to open a new front with a rally in Pennsylvania. Tightening polls have given him hope that he can take the state from Mr. Obama, who won there by a double-digit margin in 2008. But the president’s advisers dismissed the foray as a desperate move by a challenger running out of other paths to victory. 
 
 At the rally in Morrisville on Sunday, Mr. Romney made a point of mentioning a high-profile supporter, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, whose lavish praise of Mr. Obama’s leadership after Hurricane Sandy has raised Republican eyebrows. 
 
 “He’s giving it all of his heart and his passion to help the people of his state,” Mr. Romney said of the governor. 
 
 In Hollywood, Fla., Mr. Obama was endorsed by Pitbull, a Cuban-American hip-hop artist, one of many celebrities lined up by the campaigns to help draw crowds. In Pennsylvania, the Marshall Tucker Band warmed up the audience for Mr. Romney, while Stevie Wonder played “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” for Mr. Obama at a rally in Cincinnati. 
 
 Hours earlier in New Hampshire, Mr. Obama spoke to 14,000 people beneath the gold dome of the State House in Concord on a bright, chilly day that recalled any number of days that he and other hopefuls had walked the streets in their quest for a victory in the nation’s first presidential primaries. 
 
 Nearby was a reminder of how the state almost dashed his dreams in 2008. On a line of paving stones in front of the New Hampshire State Library are chiseled the names of winners in the state’s primary, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose victory there halted, for a time, Mr. Obama’s surge after he won the Iowa caucus. 
 
 On this Sunday, however, Mr. Obama had the fortifying presence of former President Bill Clinton, who noted approvingly in his introductory speech that Mr. Obama wanted to accomplish many of the same things that Mr. Clinton had during his two terms in office. 
 
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 “The test should be: What did the president do? What are the results? And compared to what?” Mr. Clinton said. “Compared to what could have happened, Barack Obama has done a good job.” 
 
 Savoring the moment, his voice not yet raw from too many speeches, Mr. Clinton gleefully accused Mr. Romney of shifting his position on the bailout of the automakers so many times that he could find work as “chief contortionist in Cirque du Soleil.” 
 
 Moments earlier, in Des Moines, Mr. Romney told his supporters that the clock had nearly run out on the president’s time in office, and he promised to usher in a new era of economic hope for families who are struggling across the country. 
 
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 “Instead of building bridges, he’s made the divide wider,” Mr. Romney said. “Let me tell you why it is he’s fallen so short of what he promised: it’s because he cared more about a liberal agenda than he did about repairing the economy.” 
 
 Mr. Romney led the crowd in a call and response: “I mean, do you think Obamacare created jobs? Did his war on coal, oil and gas create jobs? Did Dodd-Frank regulations help banks make more loans? Does raising taxes put people to work?” 
 
 “No,” the crowd cried out in response to each question. 
 
 Iowa was also the scene of skirmishing over voting, as Republicans on Sunday night accused Democratic operatives of encouraging older voters to illegally fill out absentee ballots for their family members. A letter to the state’s top election official from the chief counsel of the Republican National Committee said that a news report of “the alleged conduct of Democratic and Obama operatives, if true, is highly disconcerting.” 
 
 With the election being waged most intensely in fewer than a dozen states, the candidates seemed to be shadowboxing each other, with one arriving in a state just hours after the other left. 
 
 After Iowa, Mr. Romney held rallies in Ohio and Virginia. He planned events in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire on Monday. 
 
 Mr. Obama went from Concord to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Cincinnati. He then headed for Aurora, Colo., and was scheduled to arrive in Madison, Wis., not long before dawn on Monday. ||||| Massachusetts voters flocked to the polls today, drawn by the chance to vote in sharply contested races for president and US Senate. Many precincts reported long lines and steady turnout. 
 
 After long, intense campaigns, voters said they were thrilled, and more than a little relieved, that Election Day was finally at hand — and they were eager to have their say. 
 
 In Waltham, where voters began arriving at 6:30 a.m., turnout was strong. 
 
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 “It’s wonderful,” said Georgie Hallock, an election warden. “And the number of absentee ballots has been fantastic.” 
 
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 Jilda Diorio, 67, voted Republican. It was “time for a change as far as the presidency goes,” she said. And she liked how US Senator Scott Brown, who is being challenged by Democrat Elizabeth Warren, “worked across the aisle.” 
 
 Terry Goodridge, on the other hand, voted Democratic. Obama had “accomplished a lot,” she said. As for Romney, “we’ve had our fill of him,” she said. 
 
 In Copley Square around noon, the line to vote stretched out of the Boston Public Library and onto the sidewalk. Jim Riordan, 55, said he had waited in line two hours to cast his ballot. 
 
 “It’s just a total mess downstairs,” he said. “It’s usually bad, but this is worse.” 
 
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 Riordan, an independent, said he voted for Obama, who by his reckoning “did a good job,” and Warren. 
 
 Sarah Godfrey, 33, said she planned to split her ticket by voting for Romney for president and Warren for Senate. 
 
 “I’m just not happy with the situation right now, and if things aren’t going well, it doesn’t make sense to vote for the incumbent,” said Godfrey, who voted for Obama in 2008. 
 
 “I’m not saying it’s necessarily Obama’s fault, but maybe we can give somebody else a shot this time,” she said. 
 
 As of 3 p.m., 148,133 people had cast their vote in Boston, representing 38.26 percent of registered voters, according to the city. Turnout is slightly lower than during the last presidential election. As of 3 p.m. on Election Day in 2008, 152,780 people had voted, which was about 40.11 percent of registered voters. 
 
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 Statewide, officials predict that as many as 3.2 million people could vote, surpassing the record set in 2008. 
 
 In Belmont, a cheer went up outside the Beech Street Center after Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, and his wife, Ann, cast their votes in their hometown. 
 
 “I think you know,’’ was Romney’s reply when reporters asked for whom he had voted for president. Romney, who drew several hundred supporters as well as backers of President Obama, said he was feeling “very good, very good.” 
 
 Wearing his signature barncoat and accompanied by his wife and one of his two daughters, Brown voted in Wrentham around 7:30 a.m. He said he voted for himself, and that he expected the election, which is considered to be extremely close by experts, will have a clear winner by 10 p.m. tonight. 
 
 “It’s going to be a close election and I look forward to the results,” Brown told reporters. 
 
 Some 200 people were already in line waiting to vote when Brown arrived. 
 
 “I’ve never seen it this crowded before,’’ Brown said. “And I’ve been here for 25 years.’’ 
 
 In Cambridge, Warren cast her vote around 7:45 a.m., and went to the polling place accompanied by her husband and granddaughter. 
 
 “This campaign was never about me,” Warren told reporters after voting. “This campaign was about all of us, about all the people who invested in it, all the people who truly believed that if you got out there and worked together you can make a difference.” 
 
 Globe correspondent Johanna Kaiser and John Ellement of the Globe staff contributed to this report ||||| Your vote has been counted, thank you for voting. 
 
 Many Americans fear that the results of the presidential election will be compromised. Do you? 
 
 So many voters showed up at the Miami-Dade elections headquarters in Doral to cast absentee ballots in person Sunday afternoon that the department shut down the operation less than two hours in, saying it did not have enough resources to help everyone. 
 
 What began Sunday morning as an attempt by the Miami-Dade elections department to let more people early vote devolved into chaos and confusion only days before the nation decides its next president. 
 
 Call it the debacle in Doral. 
 
 Elections officials, overwhelmed with voters, locked the doors to their Doral headquarters and temporarily shut down the operation, angering nearly 200 voters standing in line outside — only to resume the proceedings an hour later. 
 
 On the surface, officials blamed technical equipment and a lack of staff for the shutdown. But behind the scenes, there was another issue: Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez. 
 
 The Republican had never signed off on the additional in-person absentee voting hours in the first place. 
 
 “That was counter to what I said on Friday, which was we were not going to change the game mid-stream,” he said. “I said, ‘No, there’s no way we did this.’” 
 
 But Gimenez, who is in a nonpartisan post, quickly realized it was better to let the voting go on, and the voting resumed. 
 
 The mayor said he found out early Sunday afternoon — from his daughter-in-law — about the extra voting hours. 
 
 The move had been approved by Deputy Mayor Alina Hudak at the request of Elections Supervisor Penelope Townsley. The plan was simple: Allow voters to request, fill out and return absentee ballots in person for four hours Sunday afternoon. 
 
 Early voting the Sunday before Election Day used to be allowed. But it was eliminated by the GOP-controlled state Legislature and Republican Gov. Rick Scott last year after Barack Obama used early voting to help him win Florida in 2008 — and therefore the presidency. 
 
 Gimenez said his initial reaction was to stop the last-minute Sunday voting. 
 
 But by then, around 180 people stood in line outside the elections office at 2700 NW 87th Ave. They shouted “Let us vote!” and banged on the locked glass doors. 
 
 “This is America, not a third-world country,” said Myrna Peralta, who waited in line with her 4-year-old grandson for nearly two hours before the doors closed. “They should have been prepared.” 
 
 “My beautiful Sunshine State,” she lamented. “They’re not letting people vote.” 
 
 Minutes earlier, a department spokeswoman had said the office did not have enough resources — only one ballot printer, five voting booths and two staffers — to handle the throng of voters and would begin turning new voters away. 
 
 “We had the best of intentions to provide this service today,” spokeswoman Christina White had said. “We just can’t accommodate it to the degree that we would like to.” 
 
 Calvin Sweeting, a 59-year-old from Opa-locka, was told he would be the last person to vote. 
 
 “They said I was the lucky one,” he said, shrugging. “It didn’t seem fair to me.” 
 
 Or to Jean Marcellus, 52, who stood behind him. 
 
 “This is ridiculous,” Marcellus shouted, holding up the ticket he was given to secure his place in the queue. “I’m the next one!” 
 
 Nearly all the voters stayed in line until a campaign worker reported her car had been towed from a private parking lot across the street. Scores of people ducked out of the line to check on their own cars. A second car had been towed. 
 
 Behind closed doors were back-and-forth phone calls among the department, the county attorney’s office and the mayor, who eventually decided to let the people outside the elections department vote. Democrats also unleashed a torrent of phone calls to reporters and the county. 
 
 “I’m upset at this change, but at the end, when you have 200, 300 voters out there ready to go, you really can’t disenfranchise them,” Gimenez said. Of the whole situation, he added: “I’m certainly embarrassed.” 
 
 The elections office reopened its doors at 3 p.m., after being closed for about an hour, apologizing and announcing that it had added a ballot-printing machine and more poll workers and would remain open until all voters in line at 5 p.m. had cast their in-person absentee ballots. 
 
 The crowd cheered. Around 400 people stood in line at 5 p.m. Campaign workers passed out bottled water and granola bars. 
 
 Despite lines up to seven hours long at times during eight days of early voting, Gimenez had decided late last week not to ask Gov. Scott to extend early-voting hours in Miami-Dade. The last early-voting polls officially closed at 7 p.m. Saturday, but they remained open until the last voter in line checked in with a poll worker — about 1 a.m. Sunday. 
 
 Gimenez defended his decision Sunday to refrain from asking the governor for more early-voting hours. 
 
 “We all knew what the rules were. When you start doing things like that, you’re opening to criticism of favoring one side or the other,” he said. “All of us knew it was going to be eight days of early voting. It was going to end on Saturday. There is going to be hundred of polling places [open] on Tuesday.” 
 
 The county did add poll workers, machines and voting booths to early-voting sites to alleviate some wait times. 
 
 On Sunday, Gimenez said he was angrier at Hudak, his deputy, than at Townsley, the elections supervisor. 
 
 “I’m going to have to deal with this internally,” he said. “I’m not saying somebody’s going to be lose their job, but somebody made a poor error in judgment that’s not really helping the community.” 
 
 Hudak told Miami Herald news partner WFOR-CBS 4 that she approved the decision, which at the time she did not see as a major policy shift. 
 
 “I apologized to the mayor,” she said. “I should have told him. I made a bad call.” 
 
 Gimenez said the elections department wanted to offer more hours of in-person absentee voting in part because some voters had yet to receive ballots the county had mailed them due to a post-office glitch. 
 
 Opening the elections office from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. was a work-around to a provision in the state law that eliminated early voting the Sunday before Election Day. The Florida Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in the wee hours of Sunday morning seeking to somehow extend voting in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties before Tuesday. 
 
 The law allows elections supervisors to accept in-person absentee ballots through 7 p.m. Tuesday — including Sunday, at the elections supervisor’s discretion. As of Friday, Miami-Dade and Broward had planned to open Sunday only for voters to drop off absentee ballots. 
 
 Miami-Dade switched gears to also let voters ask for a ballot and fill it out on the spot. Palm Beach and two Tampa Bay-area counties, Hillsborough and Pinellas, did the same. 
 
 Broward did not initially follow suit but then a spokeswoman said it would try to accommodate voters — after assisting people who had made appointments to cast their ballots Sunday. 
 
 But there were no lines Sunday afternoon at the Lauderhill satellite office located at 1501 NW 40th Ave. Poll workers said they had assisted voters who had appointments as well as voters who had dropped by without an appointment to fill out a ballot. 
 
 Voters across the state can request and cast absentee ballots in person Monday. They can also drop them off at elections supervisor’s offices — but not at their precincts — on Election Day. 
 
 The Democrats’ lawsuit, filed in Miami federal court, argued that an emergency judge’s order was necessary to “extend voting opportunities” before Tuesday in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, including allowing voters to cast absentee ballots in person. 
 
 It’s unclear exactly what more a court could have done, two days before Election Day. The lawsuit did not ask U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz to reopen all early-voting sites. 
 
 “The extraordinarily long lines deterred or prevented voters from waiting to vote. Some voters left the polling sites upon learning of the expected wait, and others refused to line up altogether,” the lawsuit said. “These long lines and extreme delays unduly and unjustifiably burdened the right to vote.” 
 
 An attorney for the Miami-Dade elections supervisor filed a motion Sunday morning saying the lawsuit was moot because the county would allow for in-person absentee voting Sunday afternoon. 
 
 Democrats and Democratic-leaning groups had asked the governor late last week to extend early-voting hours by executive authority. Scott declined Thursday night. 
 
 On Friday, Monroe County Elections Supervisor Harry Sawyer Jr., a Republican, sent the governor a letter asking for more hours. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner responded that the early-voting reports he was receiving from elections supervisors across the state were positive. 
 
 Scott signed a law last year reducing the number of early-voting days to eight from 14 and eliminating voting on the Sunday before Election Day, which Democrats used to turn out supporters in 2008. The new law guarantees one Sunday of early voting. 
 
 The number of maximum hours offered stayed the same on the books, but four years ago, then-Gov. Charlie Crist effectively extended early voting by another 24 hours. 
 
 Separately, the party sued in Orlando circuit court asking to extend early-voting hours in Orange County after a bomb scare temporarily closed a polling place. On Sunday morning, a judge ruled that the Winter Park early-voting site should open for four hours. 
 
 Excluding that site and the counties that allowed in-person absentee voting, more than 4.4 million Floridians had voted early or absentee by Sunday morning. More than 2.4 million people had voted early — most of them Democrats. More than 2 million had voted absentee — most of them Republicans. 
 
 In 2008, more people voted early, and fewer voted absentee. 
 
 Miami Herald staff writers Marc Caputo, Diana Moskovitz and Charles Rabin contributed to this report. ||||| By Anjali Athavaley, Pervaiz Shallwani, Sharon Adarlo, Alison Fox and Heather Haddon 
 
 UPDATED | Despite last-minute efforts by officials in New York and New Jersey to help storm victims vote, confusion, lack of electricity and long lines still plagued polling sites throughout the area Tuesday. 
 
 To prevent disenfranchising voters, shuttle buses were running in hard-hit areas, voting locations were combined and Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive ordering allowing storm victims to vote outside of their district Monday night. Still, problems arose as soon as some locations opened. 
 
 On the playground of Scholars’ Academy on Beach 104th St. in Rockaway Park, several voting locations from the western end of the Rockaway peninsula were consolidated into one tent-covered polling site. Problems started immediately, as poll workers arrived to find that generators, heaters and lights were nowhere to be found. 
 
 “It just got a little chaotic,” said pollworker Estel Lyons. “We had it planned the best we could and there were a few glitches.” 
 
 Zuma Press People gather to vote at a makeshift tent, which is used as a polling station in Rockway. 
 
 Marie Howley of Rockaway Park used a rental car to drive in from Rockville Centre on Long Island, where she has been staying with her daughter. Her only complaint was lack of sufficient light in the tents. “It’s dark in there,” she said. “You had to hold up the card to see. I think I filled in all the holes correctly.” 
 
 In hard-hit Hoboken, various snafus caused long waits for voters to cast ballots at a combined polling location for two districts on Grand Street. The doors of the Multi Service Center of Hoboken weren’t open at 6 a.m., poll workers struggled to find a key to open the operational voting machines and voters were told they might have to cast paper ballots, said Joe Maziarski, a 27-year-old Hoboken resident at the polling site. 
 
 “People weren’t really happy with that idea,” said Maziarski, a TV producer. 
 
 The machines were eventually opened but the tables lacked signs directing people to their appropriate polling district, and voters took it upon themselves to guide people, Maziarski said. “It was very disorganized. You couldn’t tell who was running the organization,” he said. 
 
 Sandy even threw some kinks in the voting process in parts of New York City where the lights stayed on throughout the storm. 
 
 In Park Slope, voters who usually cast their ballots at John Jay High School, now serving as an shelter for storm evacuees, were directed to PS 282, more than a half a mile away. Some residents had received fliers passed out on Monday by Assembyman James F. Brennan redirecting them to the new site. 
 
 Lines stretched outside the school and around the block. But displaced voters got a break and were directed to a separate entrance where lines were shorter. Those who already knew their election district were processed quickly, in about half an hour. 
 
 It was unclear if the shorter lines were because of lower turnout from residents redirected from their usual polling places. 
 
 At the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School in midtown Manhattan, polling workers said that around noon, they had run out of affidavit ballot envelopes needed for voters who weren’t registered at the polling site. 
 
 Jon Protas/The Wall Street Journal A double line of voters stretches around the block as people wait to vote on West End Ave at 95th street in Manhattan. 
 
 “Governor Cuomo sits up there in Albany and signs an executive order, but he’s not in the trenches,” said coordinator Fred Kelly. 
 
 Another Board of Elections worker said some voters had submitted ballots without envelopes, meaning their votes wouldn’t count. 
 
 Voters were instructed to try other polling places in midtown. “I figured there would be a long line, but I thought I’d be able to vote here,” said 22-year-old James Bedell, who lives in East Village but works as a bank analyst in midtown. He said of the confusion at the high school, “A lot of people don’t even know what they’re supposed to do.” 
 
 At some sites, voting was going smoothly. Voters have no wait time to use a polling booth at one Teterboro site that is accepting votes from displaced Moonachie residents. 
 
 Eleanor Madison, 77, displaced by the storm, said her town had shuttles to Teterboro so they could vote. 
 
 “We had calls from our police department,” she said about the voting change. “But not everybody is getting the calls. People have told me,” she said, guessing their numbers were not listed or registered. 
 
 “They are calling people but I say they should go around with a megaphone,” she said. 
 
 Dale Birnbaum, a small-business owner from South Brunswick who has been displaced by Sandy, struggled to figure out how to vote electronically. She couldn’t easily find information on the state’s website, and resorted to contacting friends on Facebook. She eventually contacted the Middlesex County clerk’s office for an application, but had yet to receive a response Tuesday. 
 
 “I want to vote so badly,” said Birnhaum, who is staying with her daughter in West New York and is going to try to vote provisionally in Hudson County. “I have local people I would love to vote for but I just want to vote for the president.” 
 
 Associated Press Poll worker Lisa Amico, right, helps voters by flashlight in a dark and unheated tent serving as a polling site in the Midland Beach section of Staten Island. 
 
 New Jersey residents who chose to vote electronically were facing confusion and uncertainty whether their votes would be counted. 
 
 Kate Supple, a 29-year-old Jersey City resident who was displaced by Sandy and staying in Manhattan, emailed her application to the Hudson County clerk Monday. Supple said she received a brief email acknowledgement of her application but has yet to receiver her ballot, and was worried that her vote wouldn’t be counted. 
 
 Poll worker Lisa Amico, right, helps voters by flashlight in a dark and unheated tent serving as a polling site in the Midland Beach section of Staten Island. 
 
 Several confused voters showed up Tuesday morning at PS 288 in Coney Island. A sign posted on the gate told them “school closed. No voting here.” A smaller sign directed people to 3001 west 1st street, 25 blocks away. 
 
 Martha Gonzalez, 23, showed up to vote but quickly realized she couldn’t do so here. “My Internet is down in my household,” said Gonzalez, who lost her job at a liquor store that was damaged in the storm. “I thought it was here.” 
 
 William Soto, 54, rode his bicycle to PS 288 with the hope of voting. When he saw the sign the retired mechanic got ready to turn right back around and go home. 
 
 “Obama, I’m sorry, I’m not going there,” he said about the new polling location. “It’s too much for me.” 
 
 Lines were long but the mood was subdued and civil at Bethel Baptist Church in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. The area was largely untouched by the storm. 
 
 Several people had heard of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order allowing voters in nine counties affected by Sandy, including New York City, Westchester and Long Island, to vote at any site by affidavit ballot and wondered allowed if it might help them skip 45-minute waits to vote. But no one appeared to leave to try their luck. 
 
 – with Jennifer Smith 
 
 See more photos of New York and New Jersey residents voting in areas affected by superstorm Sandy. ||||| An hour after the polls opened in Florida Tuesday morning, the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections office mistakenly sent out more than 12,000 automatic calls telling voters they could cast their ballots as late as 7 p.m. Wednesday. 
 
 In fact, all polls close in Florida Tuesday night and any ballots turned in after that will not be counted. 
 
 “We had scheduled them for Monday, and any remaining calls that didn’t go out, started going out today,” Nancy Whitlock, a spokesperson for the county’s elections office, told NBC News. 
 
 The automatic calls were meant to alert voters who had requested absentee ballots, but not yet returned them, that they had until 7 p.m. “tomorrow,” as in Tuesday, to drop them off. But a glitch in the county’s vendor phone system caused the 12,000 calls that did not go out Monday to be held overnight and then recycled Tuesday morning. The outdated calls were going out for about 30 minutes before confused voters alerted the office. 
 
 A new automatic call went out within the hour clarifying to voters that “today is Election Day,” Whitlock said. 
 
 The Tampa Bay Times first reported the news. It said that Carole Crist, wife of former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, was reportedly among the voters who received the misleading call this morning. 
 
 Florida has 29 electoral votes, and both presidential candidates have campaigned tenaciously in pursuit of them. President Obama carried the state in 2008, but Romney has pushed hard for what Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner predicts will be as many as 9 million votes in 2012. 
 
 Romney began his full final day of campaigning in Florida Monday with a rally held inside an airplane hangar. 
 
 “Look, we have one job left and that’s to make sure that on Election Day…we make certain that everybody who is qualified to vote, gets out to vote,” Romney said Monday. “We need every single vote in Florida.”
– Americans flocked to the polls this morning, forming long lines in many places around the country. USA Today counted 75 people in line at one DC polling place. Here are some of the stories filtering in nationally: Some problems have already cropped up in Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. One poll worker was caught telling voters they needed a registration card and picture ID, when the law only requires one of the two. Several problems with voting machines also cropped up, in one case forcing voters to be turned away for up to an hour. The lines were also long in Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney cast his ballot today, the Boston Globe reports. When asked who he voted for, Romney replied, "I think you know." Scott Brown, meanwhile, marveled at the lines at his polling place. "I've never seen it this crowded before," he said, "and I've been here for 25 years." Joe Biden caused a bit of a stir after casting his ballot in Delaware, when a reporter asked if this was the last time he would vote for himself. "Oh, I don't think so," he replied, which Fox News is taking as a hint that he might run for president again. In New York and New Jersey, confusion reigned, the Wall Street Journal reports. Power outages forced some polling places to make on-the-fly changes, like opening voting machines and switching to paper ballots. "It was very disorganized. You couldn't tell who was running the organization," says one Hoboken voter. The Miami New Times is reporting "imposing lines," even though half of likely Florida voters have already voted—adding that, because Florida's GOP has put 11 lengthy constitutional amendments on the ballot, voting can take a while.