Election 2016: Tracking reports of voting problems across the United States

Scroll to the bottom for more information on this project.

10/27, 5:36 p.m.: N.C. NAACP wants more help for voters affected by Hurricane Matthew

The North Carolina NAACP says the state isn't doing enough to accommodate voters still recovering from Hurricane Matthew.

Rev. William Barber II, the group's president, said the NAACP has asked North Carolina to add evening and weekend voting hours, and to set up mobile voting units for voters in certain eastern counties that were affected by the storm earlier this month.

Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for the state board, told NBC in a statement that the state extended the voter registration deadline by several days in affected counties as a result of the hurricane. "Also, the State Board is mailing postcards to all absentee voters in the affected counties who have not yet returned their ballots in case they were lost or not delivered because of the storm," Gannon added. "The postcard reminds voters of their voting options."

Gannon said the state is prepared to take further action if it deems it necessary.

The controversy comes after several county election boards, which are controlled by Republicans, reduced early voting sites and locations compared to 2012, acting after the state GOP urged them to do so in order to benefit the party's candidates. In Guildford County, which cut early voting sites for the first week of early voting from 16 in 2012 to just one this year, some voters reported waiting three hours to vote last week, and after two days, voting rates were dramatically down from 2012.

10/27, 2:40 p.m.: Advocates say North Carolina voters are being illegally removed from rolls

Civil rights advocates in North Carolina say hundreds of voters have been illegally removed from the rolls after their eligibility was challenged. The state has said the removals are legal.

Around 4,500 voters in Beaufort, Moore, and Cumberland counties were challenged, in many cases after mail sent to their address was returned, the state confirmed in a letter sent Thursday to the NAACP. The majority were in Cumberland County, the letter said. North Carolina law allows for private citizens to formally challenge a voter's eligibility ahead of an election.

Beaufort County elections director Kelli Hopkins told NBC News that 14 voters have been removed, and hearings are pending for about 90 more. Hopkins said that if challenged voters don't respond to a letter or show up to a hearing on their eligibility, they are typically removed.

Moore County elections director Glenda Clendenin told NBC News that between 300 and 400 voters had been removed in the most recent of two rounds of removals. She declined to estimate how many had been removed in the first round.

Voting rights lawyer Penda Hair said on a Thursday conference call organized by the NAACP that the group believes over 300 Cumberland County voters have been removed.

One challenged voter, Grace Hardison of Beaufort County, is a 100-year-old African-American woman who for much of her life couldn't vote thanks to Jim Crow laws, and has been on the rolls for 30 years, her nephew Greg Satterthwaite said on the NAACP call. The challenge to Hardison was eventually withdrawn and she remains on the rolls.

Hair said the removals violate the federal Motor Voter law, which bars systematic purges of the rolls 90 days ahead of an election. Last week, the NAACP notified the state board of elections in a letter that intends to sue.

In a response sent Thursday to NAACP North Carolina president William Barber II, state board of elections director Kim Strach maintained that the removals were legal because they're being done on an individual basis rather than systematically.

There'll likely be more to come on this...

10/27, 11:11 a.m.: Trump tweets about "vote flipping" in Texas, but election officials can't verify

Donald Trump tweeted Thursday morning:

NBC News spoke with Toni Pippins-Poole, the elections director for Dallas County, where some of the reports of vote flipping have occurred. She explained that the county's protocol for when voters complain about problems with machines is to cancel the ballot and recalibrate the machine. If they get a second complaint about the same machine, they take it out of service. She said five machines have so far been taken out of service.

However, Pippins-Poole said that in no case have administrators been able to replicate the error reported by a voter, and every voter who complained has ultimately been able to vote successfully.

Pippins-Poole said a lot of the complaints they've received stem from the fact that the "Summary Page" that voters see at the end says "Incomplete" if they didn't vote in every race. This often confuses voters into thinking that the votes they did cast have not been recorded (though it wouldn't explain flipping votes from one candidate to another). She said there can also be other forms of voter error, such as when jewelry touches the screen, accidentally registering a vote.

In terms of any kind of conspiracy to benefit one candidate and hurt the other, as some on social media are suggesting, Pippins-Poole said: "That is not happening."

Other election directors where voters have complained about flipped votes have also attributed the problem to voter error.

However, many touch screen machines are over a decade old, so election experts have expressed concern about the potential for malfunctions. A machine in Pennsylvania in 2012 changed votes from Obama to Romney, and there have been credible reports of votes being changed from Clinton to Trump in North Carolina this year.

10/26, 12:34 p.m.: Reports of Texas voter ID law being incorrectly enforced

Poll-workers and flyers in some Texas counties have incorrectly told voters they need a photo ID to cast a ballot, voting rights advocates say.

The claims add to concerns that Texas is failing to fully implement a federal court ruling that substantially loosened the state's ID law.

The Texas Civil Rights Project has been compiling reports of irregularities in early voting in the Lone Star State, which began Monday. According to the group:

At least two counties, Bexar and Denton, posted outdated flyers which inaccurately tell voters that photo ID is required.
A voter in Denton County reported being turned away for lack of a photo ID.
At at least two sites in Houston, voters said poll workers incorrectly told them they needed ID.
In Denton County, an armed patrol person was seen talking to voters waiting in line.

Alicia Pierce, a spokeswoman for Texas Secretary of State Carlos Cascos, said that in response to the complaints, her office had sent a reminder to counties to use updated flyers, which correctly inform voters that they can vote without photo ID if they sign an affidavit swearing to their identity.

"Clearly it's mistakes when this has happened," said Pierce. "No one's doing this intentionally."

But the reports follow weeks in which Texas has appeared to drag its feet in implementing the federal court ruling. Last month the court found that the state used misleading language in describing the new rules and ordered the state to change it. And it found an earlier public education campaign about the ID law to be "woefully inadequate."

What is this project?

Voting never goes perfectly smoothly in any election. But this year could bring a perfect storm of problems. One presidential candidate has made sweeping claims about the threat of voter fraud, and urged supporters to monitor the polls, raising fears of intimidation.

Restrictive voting laws will be in place in several states, and even recent court-ordered changes to some laws are likely to cause confusion. Most states are using voting machines that are over a decade old and at risk of malfunctioning. And as if that weren't enough, this will be the first presidential election in over half a century without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act.

That's why from now through Election Day and beyond, we'll use this page to track reports of voting problems and irregularities. That includes claims of fraud or intimidation, long wait times, machine snafus, controversies over counting votes and anything else that could threaten the right to vote or the integrity of the process.

NBC News will update this list frequently, with the newest developments at the top.