MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. -- The 2002 vote in South Florida got off to a rough start Tuesday morning and it forced the polls to be open two hours longer than planned.

After reports of widespread election problems across the state, Democratic gubernatorial primary candidate Janet Reno (pictured) said she planned to file a court injunction to extend voting hours to 9 p.m. in four Florida counties, including Miami-Dade and Broward. Mid-afternoon, Gov. Jeb Bush announced that he signed an executive order requiring that poll hours be extended to 9 p.m.

While polls were scheduled to be open at 7 a.m., not all places were ready. Even Reno was turned away when she tried to vote at St. Catherine Siena Church on 107th Avenue this morning. She was able to voter later.

"I think that it is important that the voters overcome mistakes made by others or failure to plan by others," the former U.S.attorney general said. "I think voters can get to the polls. And I know, judging by people, that they will try their level best at lunch hour (and) on their way home."

Reno said that she was concerned about the reports of delays, including one precinct in a predominantly black Miami neighborhood where voting didn't begin until 11:45 a.m., nearly five hours after polls opened.

Officials estimated about 500 people were unable to vote. In Miami-Dade County, 68 polling stations were still closed at 9 a.m., two hours after they were supposed to open, according to Mayor Alex Penelas.

Another candidate in the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination also ran into trouble when he tried to cast his ballot. Daryl Jones says at least five voting machines were not working where he voted in southwest Miami-Dade County. Jones says though he's discouraged by the problems, he believes voters will still be able to cast their ballots and make the right choice.

Election officials dispatched troubleshooting teams to try to deal with the problems.

"We've had a lot of reports from a lot of the precincts that they were not open on time as required by state law. Apparently a lot of the poll workers were not familiar with our procedures," said Gisela Salas of Miami-Dade County Elections. "They did not understand the procedures that they had been taught in training ... and had difficulty opening the machines."

Salas said that some workers asked voters to wait outside until all the machines were on, which goes against their policy. She also said that despite the months of preparation that went into this election, they are still dealing with the human element.

"There are a lot of poll workers that are elderly, and they're a little bit afraid of computers and they're looking at these (machines) as if they were computers. And a lot of them were hesitant to get the procedure started early in the morning and we had to walk them through it," Salas said.

Some voters were frustrated and others had to leave without casting their ballots.

"I have to come back after school and it's difficult when you have child and you're used to voting at a certain time. The polls are open at 7 a.m. I should be allowed to vote at 7 a.m.," said one voter left. "I'm a little upset ... if the machines take an hour to warm up, they should have started here at 6 a.m."

Broward County

In Broward County, which has more registered voters than the state's other 66 counties, there were problems at both the beginning and end of the day.

Broward County Election Supervisor Miriam Oliphant says her department was aware of problems and that some election workers simply did not show up today.

Angry voters weren't hard to find as reporter Peter D'Oench discovered Tuesday morning. He ran into quite a few at the Carriage Hills Condominium voting precinct in Davie where people couldn't vote until 10 a.m., three hours late.

"I think it's unforgivable. I think its very poor management and it should have been taken care of a long time ago," said Frances Picard.

"I think possibly we need a new supervisor of elections. I think it's her responsibility to see that everything runs smoothly and she hasn't done that from day one. This election didn't just happen today," said one frustrated voter. "I think it's awful. They should have known. I don't mind the lines, but I don't understand why it took them two hours to get the machines here."

Poll workers at the Davie location said the delay could be blamed on the fact that they did not have special acitivator devices (pictured, right). Without the devices, they were unable to bring up ballots on the touch-screen systems.

In T.Y. Park in Hollywood (pictured, left above) voters who showed up were told that there were no voting machines on the premises.

"They brought them in around 9 a.m.," said voter Richard Crakow. "I think it's awful. They should have known. I don't mind the lines, I just don't understand why it took them two-and-a-half hours to get the machines here."

Later, even though the polls were ordered to remain open until 9 p.m., some Broward polling stations closed early because machines were turned off at 7 p.m., and then election officials couldn't get them back on again.

Elsewhere in Florida, paper ballots were caused problems in Orlando and the rest of Orange County where scanners couldn't read the votes.

More than half of Florida's voters voted on touchscreens purchased to replace punchcard ballots, which were the focus of the 2000 election recount. Prior to the primary, elections officials offered hundreds of demonstrations of the new equipment at shopping malls, civic associations, churches and other organizations.

Watch Channel 10 for analysis of the races, details on the voting chaos, and the results of the ballot count. Refresh this page for updated information, and click here for up-to-the-minute election results as they become available.