Heavy Snow Handicaps Voters in Rockies : Storm: Ice and poor visibility make highways hazardous but ski areas benefit. Winds and foul weather plague other parts of the nation.

An Election Day storm dumped heavy snow on the Rockies and left highways slippery on the western Plains.

“In some counties we’ve had trouble even getting poll workers to the polls to open them up,” Nebraska Secretary of State Allen Beermann said.

Heavy snow fell across parts of Wyoming from late Monday into Tuesday. Snowfall totals ranged up to 17 inches at Sinks Canyon, 7 miles southwest of Lander; 13 inches at Lander; 12 inches at Togwotee Pass, 40 miles northeast of Jackson; and up to a foot at Casper. Casper Mountain got nearly 3 feet of snow in 30 hours, the National Weather Service said.

In Colorado, the National Weather Service said snow increased in coverage and intensity in Denver and other Front Range areas during the morning rush hour. The snow was driven by wind blowing at 15 to 25 m.p.h., cutting visibility.

Colorado ski resorts benefited, with Winter Park getting up to 10 inches Monday and Steamboat Springs 8 inches. Meteorologists said accumulations of 6 to 12 inches were possible in Colorado’s northern and central mountains.

Freezing drizzle iced roads near the Colorado-Kansas line.

Western and north-central Nebraska was hit by snow, rain, wind and cold, and many voters needed chains on their car tires just to get to the polls.

Most of western Nebraska was covered with 2 to 3 inches of snow, with reports of up to 5 inches on the ground in Kimball and 7 inches at O’Neill, said Larry Wirth of the weather service office in Scottsbluff. Twelve inches fell at Greeley in the north-central part of the state, the weather service said.

“It’s snowing some and the wind is blowing and it’s cold and icy,” said Lincoln County Clerk Nadine Heath at midmorning. “I understand in the rural areas it’s really hard to see.”

Another storm dumped up to 8 inches of snow on Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula and caused scattered power outages from Monday into early Tuesday.

State police said snow forced the closing of at least four school districts.

A state police dispatcher at Alpena reported several minor traffic accidents.

“It’s still snowing and blowing and it’s probably 7 or 8 inches deep close to town and as you go out from the town it gets a little deeper,” dispatcher George Beebe said early Tuesday. “A pretty good percentage of the city is without power.”

Just four days earlier, Michigan had a spell of Indian summer, making the storm hard to take, said hairdresser Michelle Collins in Houghton Lake.

“I wasn’t expecting it. We had such a nice week,” she said. “From what the customers are saying coming in, it’s pretty bad, a lot of sleet, a lot of cars in ditches.”

Wind gusting to more than 60 m.p.h. whipped through Upstate New York on Tuesday, downing trees and power lines. A peak gust of 63 m.p.h. was recorded at Buffalo, the weather service said.

In Monroe County, N.Y., where wind was recorded at 59 m.p.h., officials reported numerous power outages and trees falling on cars and houses. No injuries were reported.

About a third of a church under construction in Pittsford collapsed, but no one was there at the time.

At least 20,000 homes lost power from southern New York state to Niagara Falls. All but a few hundred had been restored by noon, said E. Alfred Osborne, a spokesman for Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.

Wind-whipped waves reached 8 feet on Lake Erie and 10 feet or higher on Lake Ontario. Minor flooding was reported along the Lake Erie shoreline south of Buffalo.

High wind also buffeted parts of Maine, along with heavy rain. Cape Elizabeth and the Portland area were lashed with wind averaging 30 m.p.h. and gusts as high as 45 m.p.h.