Despite reports of technical problems at various electronic polling stations across the province, Elections Ontario said voting ran smoothly at the majority of locations.

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In an emailed statement to CP24 on Thursday, the provincial elections agency acknowledged there have been reports of technical issues at a 鈥渇ew voting locations,鈥� but said that 99.5 per cent of the technology-enabled stations have been operating successfully.

They did not identify how many locations or which ones have been affected.

In a first for the province, Ontario has introduced the use of 鈥渆-Poll books鈥� and 鈥渧ote tabulators鈥� devices at its polling stations. The new e-Poll book is a digital database intended to replace paper lists with voters鈥� names and information while the vote tabulator tallies ballots electronically.

The technology is intended to speed up the voting and ballot-counting process, Elections Ontario said last month.

However, there have been reports of long lineups forming at some polling stations on Thursday due to problems with the electronic devices.

One Toronto voter told CP24 that he wasn鈥檛 able to vote at Our Lady of Fatima Elementary School on St. Clair Avenue on Thursday morning because workers were unable to find his name in the e-Poll book.

Others took to social media to express their frustration with the new voting process.

In the event of a technical problem, Elections Ontario said poll officials have been trained to revert to the traditional paper method of voting.

鈥淭his includes using a paper list of electors, where the poll official will manually strike-off the elector who has voted and will manually update a paper copy to identify the strike-offs,鈥� spokesperson Cara Des Granges said in the statement.

Polls opened at 9 a.m. and most closed at 9 p.m. on Thursday. Hours at six polling stations were extended due to issues unrelated to e-Poll books, Elections Ontario said.