Voting machines at most polling sites across Westchester County stopped accepting ballots Tuesday morning, forcing election officials to send voters to paper ballots while technicians scrambled to figure out what went wrong. The trouble began right as polls opened at 6 a.m., and by midmorning it had become a countywide headache rather than an isolated glitch.
As reported by CBS News New York, the scanner failures hit most polling sites in the county, with voters instructed to stay in line and fill out paper ballots for placement in a secure box rather than leave without voting. Rep. Mike Lawler, who is running for reelection in the Lower Hudson Valley, described the scope of the breakdown bluntly. “There is a problem with every ballot scanner in Westchester County,” he wrote, adding that “we do not yet know the exact cause of the issue, whether it is the ballot or the machine,” according to NBC New York.
Reports Trickle In From Multiple Towns
Reports of scanner problems came in from across Westchester County, according to NBC New York. ABC7 reported that emergency ballot bags were being used at county polling locations. Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said officials did not know when the scanner problem would be fixed, per the same NBC report.
The Westchester County Board of Elections confirmed around 7:30 a.m. that voting machines were experiencing technical difficulties, according to The Journal News (lohud). That timing lines up with the earliest voter complaints, suggesting the failure was widespread from the moment polls opened rather than building gradually over the morning.
Ballots Set Aside for Hand Counting
Westchester County officials said any paper ballots cast Tuesday would be hand-counted by the Board of Elections after polls close, according to ABC7 New York, a process that could delay final results. The station also reported that technicians were being dispatched to polling locations experiencing issues in an effort to restore normal voting operations.
Lawler said the Board of Elections was working with vendors to resolve the issue and urged patience. “The Board of Elections is working with their vendors to resolve it. However, every ballot will be counted. Stay on line and vote. Do not leave the polling place without voting,” he wrote, per the NBC New York report.
State Officials Weigh In
New York Attorney General Letitia James said her office was monitoring the situation. “My office is monitoring this issue with scanners in Westchester and is in touch with the state and local Boards of Elections as they work on a solution. Westchester voters can still safely fill out and turn in their ballots at their polling locations. Your votes will count,” she wrote, according to NBC New York's live coverage.
Scanner breakdowns on Election Day are not unheard of nationally. Voting machines can malfunction, particularly as equipment ages and experiences wear and tear from repeated use, according to the Arkansas Advocate. The outlet noted that nearly 70% of registered voters live in jurisdictions that primarily use hand-marked paper ballots, which are typically counted by electronic scanners, and that all 50 states now conduct some form of post-election audit as a backstop.
How Other Counties Have Handled Similar Failures
Earlier this month, paper jams disrupted ballot scanners at three Travis County, Texas polling locations on the first day of early voting, the Austin American-Statesman reported. Voters there who could not wait for a jam to clear were able to place completed ballots in an emergency compartment at the base of the scanner, with those ballots later transported to a central counting station to be scanned and counted under state procedures. In Bexar County, two election judges told KSAT they had encountered similar emergency-bin use during early voting, saying ballots placed there were secured but not immediately tabulated at the polling location.
Under New York Election Law § 7-120, a voting machine or system that becomes out of order during an election is supposed to be repaired or replaced with another machine as promptly as possible, according to the statute published by the New York State Senate. The law also begins to outline a process for emergency ballots if repair or substitution cannot be made, though the full procedure was not detailed in available excerpts.
