BISBEE — Many of Cochise County’s 18 polling locations were backed up Tuesday afternoon as anxious voters waited to cast a ballot in the presidential preference election.

County Supervisor Pat Call said numerous phone calls about the back-up and long lines were coming in to the county offices by early Tuesday afternoon.

“I’m concerned about this for a number of reasons,” he said. “First, people have to understand this is a state-run election and the county only gets so much per registered voter. That meant we had to consolidate voting locations. The polls were changed and it took some people a long time to figure out where to go.”

The county normally has 64 polling locations, but that number was reduced to 18 in the presidential preference election.

Call also said early ballots were low for this election, which meant more people at the polls wanting to cast their ballots.

“Things seemed to go well this morning, but now that we’re hitting lunch hour and people getting off of work, the lines are backing up,” Call added.

Karla Jensen, the county’s public information officer said county officials followed the state rules.

“We tried to let people know about the polling location changes for this election,” she said. “We have seen long lines and confusion today. There are some long lines at the polls and people are waiting to cast their votes.”

There was a lot of confusion over who could vote in the election. As has been advertised across the state, only registered Democrats and Republicans were allowed to vote. But that did not keep those registered as independents or with another party from demanding the right to vote, so they joined the ranks and helped create the backup, she said.

Jensen commended the cities of Sierra Vista and Benson for sending staff members to help at the polling locations, which came up short-handed.

“We tried to mitigate the problems at some of the polling stations,” she added.

She reported that some precincts in the state ran out of ballots.

Cochise County did not have a problem there, said Tom Schelling, the county’s election official.

Jensen said long lines should not be a problem in the fall election, as all polling locations will be used.

There is also the opportunity to receive early ballots permanently for Arizona registered voters. The state is now allowing the registration of residents who want to request early ballots on the state Web site, she added.

Polling sites and election information are available at www.co.cochise.az.us/elections.