Update From The Field: Florida

AARP's Florida state director, Lori Parham sent us this note:
Florida elections officials deserve credit for promoting early voting, which almost certainly has helped with congestion today. Some 4.26 million Floridians voted early, either through early voting or by absentee ballot. Almost 38 percent of all registered voters had cast their ballots before the first of the state's 7,000 polling places opened their doors at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time today.
Our folks are seeing only a few problems with ballots or machines. A few precincts we checked had long lines upon opening, but most of those lines had cleared out by 9 a.m. In one Tampa Bay precinct, an optical scanning machine jammed, causing a two-hour delay in voting. On the other hand, in one Tallahassee precinct, another optical scan machine caught an error by a voter and rejected the ballot. The voter was immediately provided with a fresh ballot, and was able to vote successfully.