Photo: Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call / Getty
Westchester County election officials said Tuesday that a mismatch in voting-machine programming prevented some scanners from accepting Election Day paper ballots, while urging voters to remain in line and assuring them their votes would be counted.
Kathleen McGrath, the New York State Board of Elections’ director of public information, said a change to a contest in one municipality required revised election programming after the initial equipment tests, according to The Journal News. Fox News also reported the board’s updated programming explanation and interviewed voters affected by the disruption.
Board describes a programming mismatch
The revised programming was tested and used for early voting and for Election Day machines in the municipality affected by the contest change. Machines elsewhere in the county retained the original programming and could not recognize the ballots being used Tuesday, according to the board’s account.
The county board’s own statement confirmed scanner problems at polling places across Westchester and urged people to keep voting. It did not give a count of affected machines or a timetable for restoring normal operation.
Rep. Mike Lawler, whose district includes part of Westchester, had earlier described a countywide scanner problem and said ballot thickness and machine formatting appeared to be involved. That was his description. The state board’s later statement identified the election-programming mismatch as the cause.
McGrath said officials were deploying replacement election media with the updated programming, aiming first to restore scanning at one machine in every polling location and then bring more online. The updated program had been tested during early voting and covered the county’s contests, she told The Journal News.
State officials had identified no problem with the ballot paper or its physical characteristics, McGrath said. The county board had withdrawn an earlier thickness explanation. Scanners were rejecting ballots they could not recognize rather than calculating votes incorrectly, she said, and no similar equipment problem had been identified elsewhere in New York as of Tuesday afternoon.
“Accuracy will never be sacrificed for speed,” McGrath told The Journal News. She said the normal canvass, recanvass and post-election audit procedures would remain in place.
Voters told to complete ballots and stay in line
Officials said voters should fill out paper ballots as directed by poll workers even when a scanner cannot process them. Those ballots are to go into designated orange emergency ballot bags, kept secure and monitored, and then be counted.
“Every eligible vote will be counted,” the county board said in its published statement. It apologized to voters and poll workers and urged people not to leave without casting a ballot.
County Executive Ken Jenkins called the disruption unacceptable. He said county officials, including the Law Department, would monitor voting and that he would convene a bipartisan review after the problems were addressed to examine what went wrong and determine accountability.
Lawler, speaking to CNN outside a polling location in Pearl River, had also urged voters not to leave the line and said emergency ballot bags were the contingency when machines could not accept a ballot. He warned that the process could bring delays but stressed that the ballots would count, according to Fox’s account.
Voters describe uncertainty
Several Westchester voters told Fox News Digital that workers took their completed paper ballots and placed them in bags rather than feeding them into scanners. The outlet spoke to Patrick Reagan outside a Yonkers polling place; he said that after 40 years voting in the county, he hoped every vote would be properly accounted for.
Linda Giaimo, who had accompanied a friend to vote, told Fox she was troubled by having to trust that a ballot placed in a bag would be delivered. She said she planned to contact the Board of Elections. Officials’ assurances about secure, monitored storage and subsequent counting address that concern, but do not mean the scanner outage itself had ended.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said her office was in touch with state and local election boards. Voters could still safely complete and turn in ballots at their polling locations, she said. Her office’s Election Protection Hotline is (866) 390-2992.
In a separate Election Day statement quoted by Fox, James said her office was prepared to help voters facing problems or intimidation. Her scanner update said voters could safely fill out and turn in ballots while state and local election boards worked on a solution.
New York polls opened at 6 a.m. and close at 9 p.m. Tuesday. As of noon, Jenkins said the county board had not indicated that polling hours needed to be extended, The Journal News reported. The updated account does not establish that normal scanner service has resumed; the county’s instructions remain to complete a ballot, follow poll workers’ directions and stay in line to vote.
JBizNews Desk | New York
© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.
