A day before Tuesday's election, millions of people in key states already had cast absentee or early ballots despite long lines, legal disputes over poll procedures and damage inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

In Ohio, which may be the decisive battleground state, the deadline for early voting passed Monday afternoon. By Friday, more than 1.6 million of Ohio's 7.9 million registered voters had cast ballots, either in person or by mail, said Matt McClellan, a spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted. About 200,000 of the 1.3 million absentee ballots that had been distributed were still out, he said.

Election officials are already facing a lawsuit over how provisional ballots -- issued to people whose eligibility to vote at a particular precinct was in question, or if they requested an absentee ballot but didn't return one -- should be filled out.

State law says poll workers need to note a voter's drivers' license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number on the ballot. But left-leaning groups say instructions Husted issued to election officials on Friday appear to indicate that writing down those digits is the voter's job, not the poll worker's, and warn that could result in votes being thrown out when provisional ballots are counted November 17.

A federal judge has set a hearing for Wednesday on the issue. But Husted, a Republican, said on Sunday that the process "is consistent with the courts and consistent with the law."

"We believe that this is the best way to make elections run successfully so that the most votes are counted," he said. "We believe it's consistent with the law. We believe it's the right way to run elections in Ohio."

Husted had already been taken to court for trying to cut off early voting in the three days before Tuesday, with Democrats accusing him of trying to suppress the votes of Democratic-leaning constituencies. Husted called that "an absurd notion."

"The rules are the same for everybody," he said. "They don't target any one group or individual. What we're trying to do is to make the system run fair and smooth for everybody."

Other eyes were on Florida, another vote-rich state where polls show President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney running neck-and-neck.

There were still long lines for early voting when the deadline passed over the weekend, so election officials in the state's most populous belt -- Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties -- allowed voters to pick up, fill out and submit absentee ballots.

In Miami, the lines snaked around the block from the office of the county supervisor of elections ahead of a Monday afternoon deadline. Oscar Silvia said he cast a ballot within 20 minutes during early voting last week -- but when he came back to pick up an absentee ballot for his son, he spent more than three hours in the queue.

"It's normal. It's election time," Silvia told CNN. "No other option -- you do what you have to do."

Melinda Soliz spent more than four hours in line. But since she had been in a similar line four years ago, she had planned for a long wait. Tuesday, she predicted, "is going to be worse."

"I am really tired, but it is worth it," Soliz said. "Thank God it isn't every day."

Florida Republicans, led by Gov. Rick Scott, had pushed to cut the number of days available for early voting from 14 to eight. Democrats went to court to get that period extended, arguing the polling facilities in south Florida, a Democratic stronghold, weren't up to the demand.

In the Northeast, the states hit hardest by Superstorm Sandy were trying to make accommodations for people who had been displaced by the storm or whose normal poling places had been knocked out of commission.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday he has signed an executive order allowing people displaced by Sandy to go to any "approximate polling place," sign an affidavit add cast their votes for president, U.S. Senate or other races that would have been on the ballot in their own precincts.

"We want everyone to vote," Cuomo said. "Just because you're displaced doesn't mean you should be disenfranchised."

Lawrence Norden, an election expert at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, said he believes Cuomo's move is allowable under state election laws.

"This is probably not ideal," said Norden, the deputy director of the Democracy Program at the liberal-leaning Brennan Center. "But given the dire circumstances, people should be allowed to cast their ballots."