With polling places already open throughout half of the United States problems are already starting to pop up. Some polling places in New Jersey were already forced to go to paper ballots as electronic voting machines were already seeing glitches.

In Virginia hundreds of people had to wait longer than expected when a branch library head overslept causing voter worry.

In Chappaqua, NY a poll worker said, “By 7:30 this morning, we had as many as we had at noon in 2004.”

In Ohio, a state which has had voting problems in the past, officials said they were dealing with typical glitches, like jammed backup paper tapes on voting machines.

With voter turnout so high we can only expect to see frustration from voters who are finding it typical to be in line for up to 5 hours. Good thing is most states allow voters to take paid time off from work to vote.

I can only hope things go as smoothly as possible as we don’t need another “hanging chad” Florida incident combined with numerous lawsuits that drag this election on for weeks or months.

While my support today is behind Barack Obama I find myself hoping more and more for a fast, fair election more than anything.

Well, I guess within the next 12 hours we’ll all have a better idea who the next President of the United States is. On a side note… Starbucks is offering a free cup of brewed coffee to anyone who asks on Tuesday, while Krispy Kreme Doughnuts is giving away star-shaped doughnuts. Ice cream maker Ben and Jerry’s is offering a free scoop as part of a celebration of the election.

Let me know after you voted what your experience was like and if you had any problems.

Update: As we all know at around 10 PM CST last night CNN and other news organizations announced Barack Obama is now the President Elect of the United States of America. I honestly couldn’t be more happy. Even though the President doesn’t necessarily effect my everyday life it’s one of the most exciting times overall in my existence. For the first time I can see a President inspiring all races and ages to help themselves and to volunteer to help make everyones life different. Maybe I’m just a dreamer, but time will tell.

Here’s the video of last nights historic acceptance speech in Chicago’s Grant Park where more than 200,000 people showed up to support Barack Obama and Joe Biden.