Ballot-scanning problems disrupt voting in Westchester County

Ballot-scanning problems disrupted voting in New York’s Westchester County on Tuesday, even as the US midterm elections proceeded relatively smoothly nationwide. Officials kept voting open through backup procedures there, while other polling places reported equipment failures, ballot shortages and delays.

In Westchester, voting machines were unable to scan as many as 250,000 ballots at 332 polling locations, The Guardian reported. Some machines did not accept paper ballots. County officials said the paper was too thick for machines meant to read the ballots automatically, according to Al Jazeera.

Westchester County Executive Kenneth Jenkins said voters could still cast emergency ballots, which would be placed in sealed orange bags and counted later. Separately, Al Jazeera reported that county officials said ballots would be taken to the Board of Elections under police escort and counted with attorneys and representatives of all parties present. Parts of Westchester are in New York’s closely watched 17th congressional district, where Republican Mike Lawler is in a close race to retain his seat.

Other problems ranged from ballot shortages to malfunctioning equipment. In Kansas, a polling place ran out of ballots after a county clerk’s error led to an order for 100 paper ballots instead of 100,000, according to The Guardian. In Georgia, officials requested permission to rescan more than 1,000 early votes after two scanners malfunctioned. One had been run over by a wheelchair, The Guardian reported, citing a local television station.

North Carolina’s election board was considering whether to extend voting after technical difficulties. The Guardian reported that the board would decide on a possible four-hour extension in affected counties and had delayed the release of results from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Al Jazeera reported that the board was considering a one-hour extension in seven counties. Neither report said the board had approved an extension.

In Tennessee, voters raised concerns that touch-screen machines reportedly selected Republican candidates when they tried to select Democrats, The Guardian reported. The outlet also reported that polling places in Tennessee and Oklahoma used emergency bins for ballots affected by complications. Those ballots were to be counted after polls closed Tuesday. Technicians were dispatched to polling places reporting problems.

Mississippi reported a precinct opening late, temporarily unavailable voting machines, accessibility problems on state agency websites and voters checking their registration status, according to The Guardian. The outlet also reported minor issues caused by poll-worker error in Milwaukee and technical difficulties in four Massachusetts precincts. Officials said the Massachusetts problems were resolved that morning.

Al Jazeera reported a 20-minute delay at the start of voting in Broward County, Florida, after a new safety feature malfunctioned. A power outage temporarily closed a polling station at a school in Arizona’s Maricopa County. In several Pennsylvania counties, officials extended voting by half an hour because of what they called “machine setup issues.”