Westchester’s Ballot Scanners Failed Countywide in Lawler’s Race. Officials Blamed Thick Paper, Then Took It Back

Westchester County’s ballot scanners stopped taking ballots when the polls opened at 6 a.m. Tuesday, and they stopped everywhere. Voters in one of the closest House races in America, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler’s 17th District, are filling out paper ballots and watching poll workers drop them into orange emergency bags to be counted later.

“There is a problem with every ballot scanner in Westchester County,” Lawler posted at 7:23 a.m. “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.”

Six hours in, officials still have not said what broke. What they have done is change their story.

First it was the paper’s thickness. Then it wasn’t

Early Tuesday the Westchester County Board of Elections blamed “the thickness of paper ballots.” News 12 reporter Tara Rosenblum relayed it at 8:32 a.m.: officials had “confirmed the cause,” and the paper ballots “are too thick for the machines to accept.” Less than an hour after that statement went out, the board issued a correction that took the word “thickness” out (NBC New York).

The version the county now stands behind, posted by Westchester County Government, names no cause at all. It says only that there is “an issue involving paper ballots that is preventing voting machines from accepting ballots at polling locations throughout the County.” It goes on: “Ballots will be placed in designated orange emergency ballot bags, which will remain secure and monitored. These ballots will subsequently be counted in accordance with applicable election procedures.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul offered a third version. Asked by reporters outside a Queens polling place, she said the problem appeared to stem from the “wrong size paper” and could take many hours to fix. “Every single vote will be counted, without a doubt, just whether it’s counted in a different way or we figure out how to get the ballots to a different machine,” she said, per NBC New York.

Thick paper, the wrong size paper, or no explanation at all. Pick one.

From “no one should be panicked” to “debacle”

County Executive Ken Jenkins, a Democrat, went on camera around 10 a.m. He described “a county-wide issue at all of the polling locations where the ballot is not going through the scanner,” compared it to “the old days” of paper voting, said there was “not a need at this point in time” to extend voting hours despite requests from candidates and campaigns, and told voters to stay calm.

About an hour later, the tone flipped. “My office is fully aware of the ongoing problems with ballots and voting scanners across Westchester County, and I want to be absolutely clear: this situation is unacceptable,” Jenkins said in a written statement. He sent the county Law Department to monitor the voting, and promised that once the problem is fixed he will “convene a bipartisan team to conduct a thorough review of the decisions and failures that led to this debacle, determine where accountability lies and ensure that this never happens again.”

“Today, we have fallen short of that standard,” he said. “The voters deserve better.”

The state was less alarmed. The New York State Board of Elections told voters to “rest assured that there has been no disruption to voting,” because “long-established emergency ballot procedures have been implemented, where completed ballots are secured, under bipartisan control, and will be counted.” Attorney General Letitia James said her office is “monitoring this issue” and told Westchester voters, “Your votes will count.”

What happens to the bagged ballots

Think of the scanner as a cashier’s register that went down. You can still pay, but somebody has to add up the receipts by hand later, and everyone wants to watch them do it.

The county’s own poll worker manual spells out the backup plan. If the scanner “is inoperable or will not accept ballots,” the voter puts the ballot “into the ORANGE Security Pouch,” and workers keep a “stick count” of every emergency ballot on the night’s canvass report so the totals can be checked (Westchester County Board of Elections). News 12 reports the bags go to the Board of Elections at the end of the night and will be counted first, before the ballots the machines did take (News 12).

That is where Lawler is drawing the line. “Every ballot will be counted and we are already in court to make sure they are counted in one central location so that our campaign, election monitors, and our attorneys can watch and oversee the process,” he posted at 10:03 a.m. When voters asked who would be handling the bags, he answered that New York “requires both parties be present for any action taken,” with “equal number of staff from both parties working at the board.”

His message to voters has not changed all day. “I know there have been challenges in Westchester County with the ballots and the machines, but STAY IN LINE,” he said in a video late in the morning. “Do not leave the line without voting at your polling location.” His Democratic challenger, Cait Conley, also told voters they can still vote and that every vote is being counted (ABC7 New York).

What officials still haven’t explained

Early voting ran on these same scanners, and one New Rochelle voter told NBC New York that poll workers said the machines had worked then. Jenkins said early-voting ballots are printed on site, while Election Day ballots are printed differently, per NBC New York. That points the finger at the Election Day ballot stock, but no official has said so outright.

Nobody has said who printed the Election Day ballots, whether that paper was ever run through the scanners before this morning, why the board first named thickness and then dropped it, or which court Lawler’s campaign is in and what a judge has ordered. The county has also not said when the scanners will work again, or how many ballots are sitting in orange bags.

Every official in New York has promised that every vote will be counted. In a district that could decide who controls the House, voters will also want to know that they were counted in the open, by both parties, in one place. Lawler is in court to make sure of exactly that.