Carolyn Belko

Eager to beat the long lines predicted at voting precincts, Carolyn Belko arrived first in line Tuesday at her Merrillville voting location 10 minutes before the polls opened.

But as she began to push the buttons on her electronic ballot at the Homer Iddings Elementary School site at 6 a.m., a computerized alert of "jammed" began showing up on a small screen at the bottom of the voting machine, she said.

"They unplugged it, plugged it back in, told me to vote again, but it just wouldn't work," said Belko, a math and science teacher at Bishop Noll Institute in Hammond.

"Here I am, one of the first in line, and they were telling me, 'Sorry, the guy is on the way to fix it, but you can't vote right now.' They said a second machine they had was having the same problems," Belko said.

In a hurry to get to her morning classes on time, Belko had to leave without casting her vote.

"I have an appointment this afternoon, and then I'm going to try to get back there to vote again," Belko said later on in the day.