Chris Rossley reports that at his precinct, Crossroads Church in Cottage Grove, the election officials had to open up the machine and store the paper inside, because the device refused to read the ballots. “The guys just open it up and shove it in the side. Everybody kind of had a sour look on their face, wondering what’s this guy doing?” Given that I’ve heard the same story at this point from Maple Grove, Minneapolis and Minnetonka, among other places, Rossley should feel comforted that he has company.

Natalie Madgy found the same trouble first thing at her Richfield precinct, at 73rd Street and Portland Avenue. Here’s her account:

I arrived at 6:30am and was one of the first 10 to vote. I was uncomfortable having to leave my ballot in a slot of the scanner, to be scanned later, as the machine was not working

Kent Hemmen Saleska reports an incident at Hopkins Precinct 4, the Hopkins Activity Center. Here is his account:

My wife just came back from voting in Hopkins (I’ll be heading to the polls a little later today) and reported that one of the election judges (an elderly white woman) was questioning whether a Somali woman could vote since she couldn’t speak English.

My wife was quite pleased to see (and I was grateful to hear) that a whole bunch of people stuck up for the Somali woman. My wife said there was some back and forth between the election judge and the others who were in support of the Somail woman, and as a result, apparently, one person even went over to a person in charge to report the election judge. Supposedly the election judge will get sanctioned. I don’t know what the consequences of that are, but I hope it at least involves education, if not being banned from being an election judge.

Whistleblower has a call in to the election officials in Hopkins. I’ll let you know what I find out.

UPDATE: Here’s my Sunday column on the confrontation, in which the city clerk informed me the election judge had been removed.

UPDATE2: Kim Behrens took issue with my Sunday column, which grew out of a blog post from Election Day. Behrens was there to vote at the Hopkins Activity Center, closer than anybody I had interviewed so far, when she heard the election judge say, why is she voting if she can’t speak English? She wasn’t trying to prevent the woman from voting, Behrens said, “she was just being a jerk” as another judge tried to find the voter’s name on the rolls. There was no discussion about citizenship or eligibility for voting, Behrens said, although there was obviously a fair amount of back-and-forth from the people who came to the voter’s aid.

My colleagues have collected these anecdotes, also described in StarTribune.com’s main voting day story…

• In Minneapolis, technical trouble delayed the start of voting for about 30 minutes at North Point Health and Wellness Center in the 1300 block of Penn Avenue N.

• In St. Paul, a fire alarm about 30 minutes after the polls opened briefly halted voting at the busy Model Cities of St. Paul Inc. at University and Victoria avenues. Everyone was forced to wait outside until it was determined that it was a false alarm. Before voters were allowed back in to finish voting, they had to show their ballots and matching receipts.

• Also in St. Paul, a power failure at the Dunning Recreation Center in the Merriam Park neighborhood forced election officials to enact their backup plan. About 100 people were casting ballots when the electricity went out about 8:20 a.m. after a car hit a utility pole nearby. Voting continued, and election officials took ballots to a secure location and entered them into the machines once power came back on about 9:40 a.m., said Brad Meyer, a rec center spokesman.

Nicholas Nelson has lost his faith in the voting system - and the competence of election officials - after his experience this morning at Ward 3, Precinct 9, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, in St. Paul. Here’s his account:

…they had one lady doing the registration, and she was cruising along at a rate of about 1 person every 20 minutes. No one was getting registered, and no one was available to help us.

The entire staff of election officials were completely unprepared for a crowd. How could no one see this coming. A blind man at the bottom of the sea, could have realized that there was going to be high voter turnout…but we didn’t prepare.