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Though excitement over this year's presidential race drove an early morning surge at the polls Tuesday, record-setting crowds in Prince George's County failed to materialize by day's end.

About 56 percent of the county's 497,000 registered voters cast ballots Tuesday, according to figures from the county board of elections. The results do not include absentee ballots and about 20 of the county's 218 precincts, which will be counted by Friday.

The county's highest turnout in recent memory came in the 2004 presidential election, when 73 percent of county voters came to the polls.

Record-setting numbers of new registrations and excitement over the candidacy of President Elect Barack Obama spurred politicians and elected officials to predict turnout would be as high as 85 to 90 percent.

But the long lines and crowds of eager citizens seemed confined to the morning hours on Election Day. More than 146,000 people voted before 11 a.m. in the county, climbing by 3 p.m. to 255,000 – a 51 percent turnout.

At the Laurel Volunteer Fire Department, more than 55 percent of the precinct had already voted by 4 p.m., a showing 20 percent higher than in past elections.

"It was an early morning, and it'll be a long day," said Tara Coyne, election chief at the poll site.

Election judges said it was the high interest – not voting machines – that caused the longer waits this year, which averaged about 90 minutes in the morning.

"Nobody fussed about anything," said Beulah Williams, chief judge at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt. She said residents were good-natured and understanding about the long times.

Several sites reported having one or two machines that broke down. But those machines were soon replaced by extras and the votes on the malfunctioning computers were counted at the end of the night, workers said.

Turnout before 11 a.m. accounted for about 30 percent of the county's registered voters, a much stronger showing than normal. Rainy weather that began around 3 p.m. may have dampened the final tally.

Some afternoon voters were holdovers from the morning rush. Traci Crawford, 48, came back to the New Carrollton Municipal Center at 5 p.m. after begging off from a long line that wrapped around the building when she came at 6 a.m.

"It discourages some people to stand in line for so long even if it's for a good reason," said Crawford, who said she hopes the state will move to early voting in the future.

Voter rolls swelled this year in the run-up to the election. Last month, more than 20,000 new voters signed up in the county, many looking to elect the first black president of the United States.

Some traveled long distances to cast their ballot. When Travis Joynes of Columbia learned two weeks ago that his voter registration was still listed in his former home of Greenbelt, he drove 45 minutes with three toddlers in tow to make sure his vote counted.

"For African-Americans, for this historic day, for everything that everybody has done – for me not to come because of an inconvenience? That would be selfish," Joynes said.

It's a sentiment shared by elected leaders in the county as well.

"Many of us never thought we'd see the day," said Sen. David C. Harrington (D-Dist. 47) of Cheverly. "I'll admit, at first I was attracted to [Obama] because he was an African-American. But now, I see a leader who can take us to a higher place."

Others were spurred by the state referendum on legalizing slot machine gambling in order to cover a $650 million deficit for education.

The decision to vote in favor of slots was a hard one for Denice Tyree-Turner, 60, of Temple Hills, who stopped by the Oxon Hill Branch Library to cast her vote.

"I wasn't sure," she said. "I polled some other people.  I voted for the slots because of the schools."

Election officials said they fully staffed the county's polling sites this year and ordered 300 extra "e-poll" computers to scan and initialize cards for voters to use on the touch-screen voting machines. At a cost of $3,000 per machine, the county has spent an additional $900,000 on the election this year.

"The problems in the past were that the technology wasn't in place," said County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D).

This year, by 11 p.m., only half of the votes in Prince George's 218 precincts had been recorded. Six of the precincts had trouble transmitting their results electronically and were forced to drive them in, causing delays, elections officials said.

Technology problems stymied voters and poll workers in the Sept. 12, 2006 primary, when crowds in Prince George's County waited as long as two hours to vote. The e-poll machines that register voters crashed repeatedly and final results in Prince George's were delayed by a week after workers forgot to retrieve voting machines' memory cards.

Election workers immediately hired additional judges and technicians to work the polls and few problems have been reported since.

Lawmakers are hoping that this year's election may transform the voting process in the future. In addition to a state referendum on whether to allow slot machines at five locations in the state, voters are being asked whether to approve early voting in Maryland.

It's an option that Jason Lyles of Mitchellville wishes he had this time around after waiting two hours in line.

"I think some people are discouraged by long lines," said Lyles, who said giving people a chance to vote two weeks before the election would help.

E-mail Daniel Valentine at dvalentine@gazette.net.

Staff writers Timmy Gelles, Joshua Garner, Natalie McGill and Liz Skalski contributed to this story.