SAN DIEGO -- Voter turnout around San Diego County in today's presidential primary has been "light to moderate," the Registrar of Voters said, although the Democratic race has heightened interest.

In past presidential primaries, between 44 percent and 53 percent of eligible voters countywide cast ballots. Turnout this time could be on the "higher side of that range," because of the interest generated by a woman and black man vying for the Democratic nomination, Registrar Deborah Seiler said.

Students at the University of California, San Diego turned out in large numbers at the polling place at the La Jolla campus to vote with provisional ballots because they're either not registered in the county or that particular precinct, Seiler said.

It's a typical problem for that location, and her office has sent help there, she said.

No other major voting problems have been reported, she said.

10News reported a "slow but steady" stream of voters entering a location in Hillcrest.

Officials said getting results once the polls close at 8 p.m. might take longer because of the limited use of electronic voting machines and changes to recount procedures.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified the use of most electronic voting machines in California last year.

Local election officials will manually scan ballots as they come in from the 1,801 polling places countywide, according to Seiler.

"There are going to be several hundred thousand ballots that we are going to have to hand-count here in our office," Seiler said.

One touch-screen voting machine will be located at each polling site for voters with disabilities that prevent them from using paper ballots, she said.

Results from the county's about 250,000 absentee votes will be released once the polls close at 8 p.m., but counts from the remaining ballots will "take some time," she said.

Seiler told local media that election results from the precincts will start to be reported at about 10:30 p.m.

"It will take a couple of hours for all those ballots to come back from the polling places," Seiler told a local TV station. "San Diego County is about 4,000 square miles so it just takes us a long time to collect all that."

It is not the first election in recent years that San Diego County has been forced to use paper ballots, but changes to the way those votes are tallied will delay the results, Seiler said.

Previously, paper ballots were scanned at the polling locations and then put onto an electronic card which was delivered to the registrar's office. But, after public scrutiny, the practice was halted.

"To try to restore some semblance of voter confidence, we decided not to do that," the registrar said.

Further delaying the process, Seiler said, will be the absentee ballots that are dropped off at polling locations on election day.

"It's going to be a very late night," she said.

Another challenge for the Registrar of Voters office will be a new requirement by the secretary of state that requires hand recounts of 10 percent of precincts in close races.

State law already requires counties to manually recount 1 percent of ballots post-election to ensure accuracy.

The new policy may make it difficult to certify the election within the required 28 days, Seiler said.

"We feel the 10 percent is just not doable for us under certain circumstances," she said.

If the Registrar of Voters office is unable to certify the election within 28 days, Seiler said she will have to ask a judge for an extension.

"We don't want to get to that," Seiler said.

San Diego, Kern, Riverside and San Bernardino counties have joined in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the new election recount rule.

Voters in San Diego County and around the state are choosing between Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, for the Democratic presidential nomination, or between Sen. John McCain, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for the Republican nomination.

The state ballot includes gaming compacts between the state of California and Indian tribes and a change to legislative term limits rules.

Local voters will decide whether to approve school bonds in Poway, Rancho Santa Fe and the Cajon Valley School District, which includes campuses in El Cajon and Rancho San Diego. Coronado voters will determine the fate of bond issues for improvements of beach facilities and construction of a lifeguard building.