Louisiana's top elections official is telling voters to be patient on Election Day, do their homework about the ballot and expect a lengthy wait to get in the voting booth.

Secretary of State Tom Schedler predicted turnout for the election Tuesday could top 70 percent in Louisiana after a record number of people voted early.

"Through the early voting process we had a 21% increase over 2008 which is an historic high."

Schedler tells 99.5FM he expects poll commissioners will be reasonable in enforcing the 3-minute time limit for voting, and his website is prepared to handle the high volume of traffic that is likely tonight.

"We think that the things we've done, we're buying more bandwidth, we've moved some of those things that kind of eat up a lot of clock so to speak on the system offline."

Schedler said that between the lengthy list of items on the ballot and the large number of people expected to show up, lines could be long in urban areas, with waits that could reach an hour or more.

At the top of the ballot is the hotly-contested presidential race, along with U.S. House contests, nine constitutional amendments, judicial races and local competitions. Some parishes also will choose a new justice for Louisiana's Supreme Court.

(Copyright 2012 by the Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)