Voting results slow in Virginia

As of 10 p.m., we have no final results in Virginia for the hotly-contested U.S. Senate race nor the presidential race.

Results from the state Board of Elections have been slow coming in — at one point soon after polls closed at 7, the SBE suspended the reporting of results because there were so many people still in line to vote that the board didn’t want to influence their vote with results.

Any voter in line at 7 p.m. is allowed to vote. There are anecdotal reports of people in some areas still in line to vote at 10 p.m.

Lines were long in many areas — multiple hours in some places. Earlier this afternoon, the SBE reported that long lines were the biggest problem they were seeing with the day’s voting. They were trying to work with registrars in high-volume areas — including Spotsylvania County — to get more poll workers and electronic pollbooks to precincts with long lines.

At this point, results are coming in — with a slight lead for Mitt Romney, while Senate candidate Tim Kaine just took a tiny lead from candidate George Allen — but they’re particularly slow in some of the most  populous areas of the state. In Northern Virginia, for example, Fairfax County has less than half of its precincts reporting as of 10 p.m.. Norfolk hadn’t reported any returns, at least on the SBE website.

At the election-night parties for Senate candidates Kaine and Allen, staffers are telling reporters they’re expecting a late night (later than it already is).

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