Ballots in New York being counted after scanner issue on Election Day
By Elijah Westbrook, Doug Williams
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WESTCHESTER COUNTY, New York (WCBS) — Board of Election officials were still counting ballots on Wednesday, hours after scanners were unable to accept votes at polling places across Westchester County on Election Day.
In a parking lot in Ardsley, a group of frustrated and likely sleep-deprived staffers was briefed on what the rest of their day would look like.
“We are going to go late, obviously. We’ll discuss the areas that we start with first. We have a limited amount of machines. They are certified. We have officials here from the state. They are scanners, they scan at the rate that they do,” Westchester County Elections Commissioner Tajian Nelson said.
How the scanner issue happened will be investigated, but only once all the votes are counted, as promised.
Smaller towns and villages may already be done, and some will be done even later.
The problem started just after 6 a.m. on Tuesday when scanners went down across the county due to a printing issue with the ballots, officials said. Voters waiting on line were told to fill out ballots and place them in secured bags.
Despite the unusual process, voters said they felt confident their ballots were being handled properly.
“The instructions were clear. I just follow the instructions, get authenticated, vote and place it in a sealed bag,” said Elmsford voter Cathy Ronan.
During the overnight hours, the ballots were taken to a Board of Elections facility under police supervision.
“I think we should be better than this as a county,” said Scott Wolfgang, who is running for Pelham town supervisor. “Last year, the village of Pelham Manor came down to a two-vote difference, so I would expect we’re gonna have a close race again.”
Wolfgang said Pelham has a total of 4,000 votes to count and the machines were getting through roughly 280 an hour. That math led him to believe it would take a total of 13-15 hours to count them, meaning he’d be back on Thursday.
“I don’t have any concerns about everyone’s vote being counted. It’s just it’s an unfortunate process,” Wolfgang said.
Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said Tuesday’s issue will be looked into and there will be accountability.
“We’re going to convene a bipartisan team to conduct a thorough review of the decisions and failures that led to this debacle and determine where accountability lies and ensure that this never happens again,” Jenkins said.
Hudson Valley Republican Rep. Mike Lawler chose to concede to Democratic challenger Cait Conley on Tuesday night despite not all of the votes being counted. The 17th Congressional District race was hotly contested, and the seat encompasses most of northern Westchester.
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