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IDs Cause Voting Hiccups

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- With a festive atmosphere outside, voters lined up early and it hasn't let up on the University of Pittsburgh campus.

"It's cool to be able to express my opinion and views," first-time voter James Woods said.

Many first-time voters had high hopes for the election.

"I hope the economy gets better and I'm not in my brother's position when he graduated looking for a job," said Becca Scherder of McCandless Township.


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Meanwhile at polling places throughout the area, issues arose as voters were asked to produce some form of identification.

"Everyone today is going to be requested to show it," said Mark Wolosik with Allegheny County Elections.

Requested but not required, unless it's a person's first time voting in a precinct.

That's why a KDKA-TV photographer was puzzled when she tried to vote at the Shiller School in Spring Garden where she has voted for the last six years, but arrived without an ID and was turned away.

The precinct's election judge says no one recognized her, but Wolosik says that's wrong.

"If they are requested to show it and they don't have it, then they are permitted to vote on the machine," Wolosik said.

And the signature comparison is used to verify the identity.

As for an issue that surfaced on YouTube Tuesday, of people trying to mark Barack Obama and lighting up Mitt Romney instead -- Wolosik says that's an easily fixed calibration issue.

"But you have not heard of that actually happening in Allegheny County?" KDKA's John Shumway asked Wolosik.

"I have not heard of that, no," he said.

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