Though an equipment snag held up many Utah County voters trying to cast a ballot Tuesday morning, a judge ruled late in the day that polling places did not have to stay open past 8 p.m.

Problems with devices known as encoders -- which program an access card allowing voters to use a touchscreen voting machine -- caused delays at 112 polling places.

The problems was rectified, but the delay prompted a challenge by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which works on consumer rights and technology issues.

The foundation asked that a district court judge order the Utah County polls to stay open until 10 p.m. because the voting locations were "effectively closed" in the morning, said attorney Ryan Harris.

"That was handled, in Utah County, in very different ways from precinct to precinct," said Harris. "Some precincts allowed voters to use provisional ballots. Others were just told to sit tight, and some people just left at that point."

The ruling states that "there was enough opportunity to vote," said Utah County Clerk/Auditor Kim Jackson. State law allows employees to take time off work to vote, he said, and people in line by the time polls close at 8 p.m. are allowed to cast a ballot.

The judge also noted that extending poll hours would place an "undue burden" on poll workers by requiring them to work longer hours without additional compensation. It wouldn't have been proper for the judge to order the expenditure, Jackson said.

Harris added that Utah County poll workers "were working very hard in a difficult situation."

The problem surfaced when polls opened at 7 a.m.

Longtime Provo resident Lynn Howard said he waited in a long line of "very dissatisfied" people for over an hour at Timpview High School before leaving without voting.

"The man in front of me said he would not come back to vote today," Howard said. "I'm going to try it again."

Utah County elections coordinator Sandy Hoffmann said the cause of the glitch remains unknown.

"We still have not figured out the problem. We've isolated the problem, but we haven't figured out what exactly caused it," Hoffmann said. "It may be after the election that we can really dig in and do some troubleshooting to figure that out."

Reporters Katie Ashton, Alan Choate and Joe Pyrah contributed to this report.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.