PHILADELPHIA -- An army of political operatives was dispatched to polling locations around Pennsylvania today, looking for any signs of voting irregularities. And election officials are investigating fraud allegations.

Republican observers in Philadelphia lodged some of the earliest complaints, claiming that voting machines in the city already had thousands of votes recorded on them when the polls opened at 7 a-m. The city investigated -- and found that the numbers were from a device that counted how many votes had ever been recorded on the machine, not how many would be cast today.

In Mercer County, Commissioner Olivia Lazor says some voters were apparently having problems with new electronic voting machines that the rural county in western Pennsylvania started using about two years ago. Voters apparently were voiding their votes by accident while trying to review them, and having to redo their ballots. The delays caused longer lines than normal.

Also in Philadelphia, the Republican City Committee filed a lawsuit today asking a federal judge to give them more time to challenge absentee ballots cast by Democrats. The suit demands that the city turn over a list of every Philadelphian who received an absentee ballot, and then delay counting any of their votes until at least November fifth to give the G-O-P time to investigate whether any ballots were cast by ineligible people.

A lawyer for John Kerry's campaign in Pennsylvania says some people were prevented from voting when at least a dozen Allegheny County precincts ran out of provisional ballots. More ballots were sent to the precincts that ran out, and Kerry lawyer Clifford Levine suggested that people who were turned away this morning should try again after 5 p-m. The provisional ballots, which are cast when there are questions about whether a person is eligible to vote, won't be counted until three days after the election.