Some Allegheny County polling places, possibly overwhelmed with new voters who are not on the registration rolls, have been running out of provisional ballots today.

County Chief Executive Dan Onorato said 50 to 60 precincts, out of more than 1,300 countywide, ran out of the ballots, which are given to people who show up to vote but whose names, for whatever reason, are not on the lists of voters at polling places.

If the voters are later confirmed as legitimately registered, their provisional votes are added to the total.

The problem seemed most prevalent in Oakland, where University of Pittsburgh students were voting, the Garfield neighborhood and Wilkinsburg.

The situation got more complicated this afternoon, when a county judge issued an order that voters would be allowed to register and vote provisionally. There were reports that when some of those voters showed up at places without provisional ballots, they were allowed to vote using the regular machines, which cannot be tracked.

That brought a challenge from some election monitors, who have been following the voting process all day.

Meanwhile, other monitors have expressed unhappiness that some people left polling places after being informed there were no provisional ballots.

Onorato encouraged those people to go back to the polls, because new provisional ballots are being prepared and sent to precincts that need them.

He said anyone in line when the polls close at 8 p.m. will be allowed to vote, no matter how long it takes. If there are no provisional ballots, they can still wait until new ones are delivered.

Onorato said 15,000 provisional ballots were printed for today's election. Most precincts got 12, but some got as many as 40, based on use in the primary.

Onorato said there was no way to know in advance the areas that would need more, despite intense voter drives among some parts of the population, including college students. He said only 200 were used in the primary, when the presidential races for both major parties had already been decided.

The demand for more in the general election was expected, but not this many more, he said.

Counties needing more ballots are getting about 14 more each. The provisional ballots must be tailored to 75 different configurations, based on state legislative races and such issues as referendums.

Karla Boos, a volunteer for the group Move On who was taking people to the polls in Wilkinsburg, said she was frustrated by the situation. She took a young woman who had recently registered to vote to the polls today, and the polling place had no record of the woman's registration, Boos said.

While that wasn't a big surprise, Boos said, she was surprised that the polling place was out of provisional ballots and that workers could not explain the process for getting another one.

"They should have anticipated that with so many new registrations that they would need more provisional ballots," Boos said.

At the county elections office early this afternoon, the group Election Protection, which is monitoring the voting, took in a list of 12 precincts that had run out provisional ballots. County workers already had heard of several of them and were working on replacements.

Maureen Mayer, manager of balloting and returns for the county, said voters who are not on the list at their polling place should first try to determine why. The most common reason is that the voter is at the wrong precinct, she said. The voter should call the elections office at 412-350-4500, she said, although that number has been very busy today. Voters can also check whether they are off the list because they haven't voted in recent elections and have been declared inactive.

Those who don't want to wait for a provisional ballot can go Downtown to the seventh floor of the City-County Building and ask a county judge for a court order stating they may vote. In the past, said Common Pleas Court Judge Joseph James, judges were usually inclined to grant those orders, reasoning that someone who took the trouble to go Downtown deserved one.

More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.