Voters are turning out in numbers at polling stations in major cities for the first elections since President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown. So far, the electoral process has been peaceful with few reported security concerns amid fears that polling could be delayed due to the deadly protests against the interim military regime.

Some Internet activists chose to boycott elections in protest of military rule whilst others have taken up the responsibility to monitor elections using social media tools. Tardiness of judges, missing allots, and inadequate security have led to delays causing long lines at polling stations, and there has been reports of apparent violations of the election code by some political parties. However, these expected shortcomings have not dented voters’ enthusiasm.

“They’re trying to make it delayed so that we get angry and go home,” a man cried outside a still-closed polling center in the poor, mixed neighborhood of Shoubra, an hour after it was meant to open, reports Joshua Hersh of the Huffington Post. “But we’ll show them. We will stay here and we will vote.”

Another voter exclaimed, “I am so happy; this is the first true election in the history of Egypt!” The old man added, “I am doing this for my sons and my grandsons.”

According to Robert Mackey in the New York Times, bloggers posted images of long lines at polling places. Kamal El Eid, 19, posted a photograph of the vast crowd inside her polling place in the Cairo district of Heliopolis. Ranya Khalifa, who also voted in Heliopolis, tweeted that it took her six hours to get to the front of the line.

Bloggers also reported on voting irregularities such as breaking electoral law: campaigning in on Election Day.

According to Hersh, twitter was filled with reports, through the hashtag #egypviolations, that party workers for the Freedom & Justice Party (FJP), the political wing of the Brotherhood, were distributing campaign guides to voters in line.

Abdel-Rahman Hussein tweeted that several parties campaigned on Election Day by sitting with laptops outside polling places in Cairo offering to help voters look up the registration numbers they needed to cast their ballots and giving out flyers promoting their candidates.

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The party responded that this was merely an attempt to assist voters who supported the party but were confused about the process, rather than attempt to campaign or coerce voters, Hersh explained.

Mosa’ab Elshamy, an activist at the heart of the Tahrir Square protests in February, witnessed “no significant violations in Zamalek,” an upscale part of Cairo and added that although few people from different parties were handing leaflets, most voters were “not interest” in the literature anyway, writes Mackey.

Bloggers also expressed concerns over the complicated voting process. Issandr El Amrani, the Moroccan-American journalist behind The Arabist, a Cairo-based blog, posted close-up images of the remarkably dense and confusing ballot papers voters were handed inside a polling station in the city’s Sayeda Zeinab district. Mr. Amrani explained that voters were asked to select two candidates from a list of 122 names who could only be distinguished by a small icon chosen by the would-be office holders.

This is the first of three separate polls over coming months, which includes the current elections of 508-memnber People’s Assembly or lower house set to end on 10 January 2012. Elections of 270-strong Shura Council or upper house will begin in 29 January and end on 11 March 2012. Presidential elections are due mid-2012. It is estimated that more than 40 political parties are set to compete, fielding more than 10,000 candidates.