On a potentially record-setting Election Day in Michigan, problems at the polls in metro Detroit popped up sporadically, leaving some voters waiting in line for more than an hour while others left altogether.

Several would-be voters in Redford Township did not stay Tuesday morning while the lone voting machine at Pierce Middle School was being fixed, voter Rex Nagy said.

"It stinks, it really does. So many people were upset," Nagy said.

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In Detroit, voting equipment was not ready when the polls opened at Martin Luther King Jr. High School because a custodian did not know where the equipment was located, city elections director Daniel Baxter confirmed in a text message.

These problems and others surfaced during a crucial midterm election on Tuesday that was expected to break voter turnout records and serve as a referendum of sorts on President Donald Trump's first two years in office.

Statewide, absentee voting was on pace to vastly exceed figures during the last gubernatorial election. As of Monday, 993,541 absentee ballots were returned in Michigan compared with 693,885 the day before Election Day in 2014.

Election Day turnout also seemed higher than in recent elections, voters and political organizations said.

Katie Gritzinger, 27, helped fuel the high turnout numbers, casting a ballot in Royal Oak at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. In 2016, she was number 690 at her polling place, but at the same time in 2018, her vote was number 1,194.

“It wasn’t busy at the polling place, but the worker told me they had never seen turnout like this,” she said. “I know I shouldn’t be optimistic because I was in 2016 and look what happened. But this year, it just feels like everyone voted.”

Detroit officials projected that between 41 and 46 percent of the city's 470,000 registered voters would cast a ballot, marking a significantly higher turnout than in previous elections. Voter turnout in both 2010 and 2014 was 31 percent.

“They want to send a message to Washington," Jonathan Kinloch, chair of the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party, said on Tuesday. "That’s what this blue wave is all about — sending a message to Washington to pump the brakes when it comes to attacks on our health care, immigration and the environment.”

Baxter, the city's elections director, said in a written statement that Detroit's voter turnout met expectations.

"More than 40 percent of Detroit’s electorate went to the polls today to let their voices be heard," Baxter said. "We haven’t had these types of numbers since the 1994 gubernatorial election."

Despite voters' enthusiasm, metro Detroit could not shake its reputation for problematic elections. Most recently, Wayne County's website for posting election results went haywire during the August primary.

Some voting machines in Wayne County "froze" Tuesday morning and were restored, said Lisa Williams-Jackson, a spokeswoman for the county clerk's office. Voters at both Riverside Elementary in Dearborn Heights and Addams Elementary School in Redford experienced the issue. Ballots cast during troubleshooting were placed in the auxiliary bin to be counted after polls closed Tuesday.

At Greenfield Elementary in Oakland County's Southfield Township, resident Sarah Donovan was told her voting machine was out when she arrived to vote at about 8:30 a.m.

Many of the 20 to 30 others waited, but she went home to call the township. By about 9:15 a.m., she had heard the machine was up and running again.

The machine's batteries ran out after two hours, said the Southfield City Clerk Sharon Tischler. It was plugged into a surge protector, but the protector was set to the "off" switch, which was fixed by a custodian.

"They didn’t look to see whether the on or the off was working," Tischler said.

Tischler initially said she wasn't sure where ballots were placed while the machine was down. By about 2 p.m., though, she said outstanding ballots had been put through the tabulator.

Accounts of voter intimidation were scarce.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan was looking into reports of an excessive number of Republican election challengers at a polling place in Dearborn, the same spot where an elected official said some Arab-American voters faced intimidation.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, told the Free Press on Tuesday afternoon that she heard four people at the school were asking arriving voters their names and whether they were sure they were U.S. citizens.

However, Dearborn City Clerk George Darany said he investigated the complaints at Salina Intermediate School and didn't find evidence of harassment or too many election challengers.

Free Press staff writers Kristi Tanner, Kathleen Gray and Ann Zaniewski contributed to this story.

This article was reported with a tip from ProPublica's Electionland project, which monitors voting problems around the country.