Many states have taken steps to alleviate the anticipated crush. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has issued a directive mandating all polling places to have one voting machine for every 175 voters. They also have been encouraging people to vote early or vote by mail to avoid long lines on election day.
But several battleground states have limited early voting, including Pennsylvania and Virginia, which both require voters to explain why they can't vote on election day in order to cast ballots before Tuesday.
Election watchdogs are particularly worried about Virginia, which until this year had not been a presidential battleground in decades. Neighborhoods like the one around Norfolk's Young Elementary -- once the heart of the city's black community -- were election afterthoughts, rarely visited even by Democratic presidential campaigns.
Arlene Watts, who has lived a few blocks from the school for more than 20 years, said the only evidence of John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign were fliers left on doorsteps.
This year, volunteers from Barack Obama's local campaign office have blanketed the area, visiting and revisiting the housing project and the scruffy neighborhood nearby to register voters and ensure they vote.
"Seems like we've seen someone just about every day," Watts said.
Obama is counting on heavy turnout by new voters in long-ignored minority precincts to swing the state into the Democratic column for the first time in 34 years. Voter registration in Virginia has surged nearly 10% since 2004, to more than 5 million.
Norfolk residents waited more than two hours at City Hall last week to cast absentee ballots. Norfolk officials would not discuss the city's election preparations. But state officials insist they are ready, noting that Virginia has nearly doubled the number of voting machines in the last four years.
"We are expecting long lines, but we feel prepared," said Jessica Lane, spokeswoman for the state Board of Elections. "If everyone is in line by 7 p.m., people will be able to vote."
Others are less convinced. Advancement Project last week sued the state election board and election officials in Richmond, Virginia Beach and Norfolk in a bid for more voting machines to be deployed to polling stations. A hearing is scheduled for Monday in a Richmond federal court.
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noam.levey@latimes.com
