White Plains, New York: Ballot Scanners Fail Across Westchester County on Election Day, Voting Continues on Paper

Ballot scanners stopped accepting paper ballots at polling places across Westchester County on Tuesday morning, in the first hours of voting in the midterm elections. The Westchester County Board of Elections said it is aware of an issue involving paper ballots that is preventing voting machines from accepting ballots at polling locations throughout the county, and said it is in constant communication with New York State officials, county government and poll workers to fix it.

Voting continues on paper

No polling place has closed. Voters are completing their paper ballots as poll workers instruct them, and the marked ballots are placed in designated orange emergency ballot bags, which the board said will remain secure and monitored and will be counted under standard election procedures. "Every eligible vote will be counted," the board said. "No voter should be discouraged from participating in this election because of this issue." Polls in New York opened at 6 a.m. Eastern Time and close at 9 p.m., and the board urged voters to stay in line and be patient.

What voters found at the polls

Poll worker Claire Lovell in New Castle told USA Today the problem started as soon as the polls opened at 6 a.m. and was still going on after 8 a.m. She said she was instructed to have voters put their ballots in a secure envelope so they can be hand counted if the machines do not come back on. Elizabeth Belanger, 54, of Sleepy Hollow told the newspaper that poll workers in her town told her to either come back later or put her ballot in an envelope. The county board confirmed the countywide technical difficulties at about 7:30 a.m., and the machines were still out of service at many sites after 8 a.m., with no estimate yet for when they would return.

Both campaigns tell voters to stay

Westchester County sits inside New York's 17th Congressional District, one of the most competitive House races in the country, and both campaigns moved quickly to keep voters from leaving. Representative Mike Lawler, the Republican defending the seat, said there is a problem with every ballot scanner in the county. "We do not yet know the exact cause of the issue, whether it is the ballot or the machine. 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," Lawler wrote. His Democratic challenger, Cait Conley, said there are technical issues with ballot scanners in Westchester but every vote is being counted, and urged voters not to be dissuaded. New York Attorney General Letitia James said her office is monitoring the scanner issue and is in touch with the state and local boards of elections, and said Westchester voters can still safely fill out and turn in their ballots.

Cause not yet identified

By mid morning, officials had not identified what caused the failure. The board apologized to voters and poll workers for the inconvenience and said it is taking every necessary step to address the issue as quickly as possible. The breakdown is a local failure inside a national election day: voters across the United States are deciding control of Congress for the last two years of President Donald Trump's second term, and the Westchester vote will help decide one of the closest House races in the country.