As counting got underway in some areas, voters elsewhere remained in lines, waiting for their turn to fill out the ballots, in the small cardboard voting booths.
Results are not expected before Friday.
The turnout across the country was strong with throngs of people walking for hours, because of a general lack of public transport, only to find massive lines already outside voting centres.
In response, electoral authorities ordered voting offices to remain open as long as people were still in line, but some voting centres did not get the message and shut as initially scheduled.
At a school in the Bel Air shantytown near the presidential palace, about 16 people seated at two rickety tables counted ballots, as an observer from the US embassy watched on.
The only light came from candles supplied as part of the electoral kit.
Deaths
A policeman and a civilian died of gunshot wounds and four others were injured when a crowd rushed the gates of a voting centre in the northwestern town of Gros Mornes, a local radio station reported.
In the capital, Port-au-Prince, one man was asphyxiated, another died of a heart attack and several more were wounded during similar stampedes, officials said.
Officials of the 9,500-strong UN military and police force in Haiti also said 22 people were wounded, four of them seriously, when the wall of a voting centre collapsed in St Louis du Nord.
More people were reported wounded in other parts of the country, including a Chilean peacekeeper that was stabbed as he intervened in a fight outside a voting centre.
International praise
Despite problems during the election, which had been postponed four times, international observers hailed the very fact that the voting could be held in a country terrorised by armed gangs, plagued by rampant poverty, and with a history of fraudulent elections and military coups.
A team of EU electoral observers however criticised the long delays in opening the voting centers.
“A population that was so motivated deserved well-prepared and well-organized elections," said Johan Van Hecke, the European deputy who led the 61-strong team.
But he said "technical and logistical problems created considerable delays in opening the polls."
Mr Van Hecke, a Belgian, said everything should have been in place on the eve of the voting.
UN’s close watch
The UN forces had kept a close watch on the election.
Armored personnel carriers were positioned in key areas of the capital, particularly near the notoriously violent Cite Soleil slum.
Thousands of people staged a protest march, decrying the delays and the fact that residents of Cite Soleil were forced to cast ballots in neighboring areas due to security concerns.
The protesters also chanted the name of former president Rene Preval, the front runner in opinion polls.