Experts projected that as many as 39 percent of registered voters nationwide would cast ballots on direct record electronic (DRE) machines, mostly on touch-screen systems. This was the first year that DREs have been used on a such a widespread basis in a general election, leading to about the prospect for fraud, hacking or technical glitches.

But on the day after an election that saw Democrats make sizable gains in Congress, it remains unclear to what degree those fears may have been realized. There were a number of scattered reports of technical or procedural failures in Colorado, Texas, Florida, Utah and Pennsylvania. For instance, in Broward County and Miami-Dade County, Fla., voters reported difficulties getting the touchscreen systems to display the candidate they voted for, a glitch known as

One voter advocate, Holly Jacobson, co-director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based nonprofit Voter Action, an elections watchdog organization, was especially critical.

"Although I heard reports that there were few problems and that for the most part things went smoothly in Tuesday's elections, that doesn't seem to be the experience of many voters -- particularly in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, San Diego County and elsewhere," she said. "Reading through these reports really does give a tragic view of the voting experience for many."