ELMWOOD - The Secretary of State's office has taken custody of a voting machine that was being used to allow select people to vote in a private conference room inside a Jefferson Parish governmental office.

The machine was located in the office area of the Jefferson Parish registrar of voters. The registrar, Dennis DiMarco, said the machine was for people who were too busy to wait in the early voting lines. A record number of people have been voting early in Louisiana and across the country.

"It's really a convenience for those whose time is, for lack of a better word, maybe more valuable than others," DiMarco said, in a story posted on WBRZ news partner site WWLTV.com.

The machines are not available to the public - instead, VIPs are given access to the machine. Someone who was allowed to vote via the machine reported the situation, WWL reported.

Louisiana's Secretary of State, Tom Schedler, sent DiMarco a letter stating that a complaint was made to the U.S. Justice Department regarding the machine in his conference room. Schedler, who serves as the state's chief election officer, ordered his staff to seize the machine, along with the signature pages for the voters who voted in the conference room.

"This was not a way of allowing a fraudulent vote or anything like that," DiMarco said. "It was merely a convenience for people that we feel and the law allows the privilege to go to the head of the line."

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