The ballot scanning screwup: what went wrong on Tuesday

By JEFF MORRIS 

Just minutes after polling places opened at 6 a.m. Tuesday, it was clear that something was very wrong. 

Ballots were being rejected by scanning machines throughout Westchester. That is, everywhere but in Ardsley.

As officials communicated about what to do, voters — casting ballots in a contentious political environment not seen in this country for generations — grew concerned. 

Poll workers implemented contingency plans, and, supervised by members of both parties, began placing the unscanned ballots into secure orange emergency bags. 

Meanwhile, incorrect information, some of that originating with the Westchester County Board of Elections itself, spread.

Initial reports blamed the problem on ballots being printed on paper stock that was too thick to be accepted by the scanners. Some press accounts incorrectly referred to voters being issued “emergency ballots” for placement in the contingency bags. The ballots were regular ballots, but they were collected the way emergency ballots are.

Posts on social media described some people filling out another ballot, or becoming discouraged and leaving. And there were numerous comments condemning the incompetence of election officials, politicians in general, and the entire electoral system — in other words, a typical day on social media.

U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler and challenger Cait Conley issued statements reassuring voters that all ballots would be counted in the 17th Congressional District race, and asking everyone to go to the polls as they normally would. 

County Executive Ken Jenkins at first said officials were concerned that the voting machines had been tampered with. By 11 a.m., he was calling for a bipartisan team to conduct a review of the “failures that led to this debacle” and called the situation “unacceptable.” 

“The voters all deserve better, and we intend to make sure that they get it,” Jenkins said. 

A post-testing change

By afternoon, Jenkins said the issue was with the printing of the paper ballots and not the actual machines or the thickness of the paper. He said it was a barcoding error on the ballots, which had been printed by an outside vendor.

So why did the scanners work for early voting, which ended Sunday, only to fail on Tuesday? 

It turns out the ballots used in early voting were different. They were printed on the spot specifically for each voter, depending on their district, because voters are allowed to use any early voting site in the county. Election Day ballots were preprinted for each district.

And it was those preprinted ballots that turned out to be the problem.

A statement from the New York State Board of Elections around midday said the issue “resulted from an update to the county’s election programming that occurred after the initial preparation and testing of Election Day voting equipment.” 

It said “a change affecting a contest in one municipality required updated election programming which was subsequently tested and deployed for early voting and for Election Day machines in that municipality.”

However, it continued, machines elsewhere continued to use the original programming “and therefore could not recognize and accept the ballots being used for Election Day.” 

A knowledgeable source told The Recorder that Ardsley was the municipality where the programming change had occurred, and was the only place where scanners were working.

The state Board of Elections stressed, “Importantly, the affected scanners rejected ballots they could not properly recognize rather than incorrectly tabulating them.”

They also reassured voters that every valid vote would be counted, and that established canvass, recanvass, and post-election audit procedures would remain in place. 

“Accuracy will never be sacrificed for speed,” the board said.

By Tuesday afternoon, Jenkins announced that technicians were working to get at least one scanner up and running at each polling place. They were  reprogramming backup machines normally used by individuals with disabilities. 

That process continued for much of the day, with most polling places eventually able to at least use some machines, though the times varied by polling place.

In Katonah around 4 p.m., poll workers told The Recorder that some voters were anxious about the emergency ballot measures, which they thought raised the possibility of tampering. Traffic was somewhat light, the workers said, which they attributed to a heavy surge in early voting more than concerns about the scanning issues. They also said voters at this location were largely aware of the issues when they came to vote.

A Bedford police officer, sitting in a patrol car outside the Katonah Village Library, said police were asked to monitor polling locations throughout the town. 

In Lewisboro, a town police car sat outside the South Salem firehouse after 8 p.m. The officer appeared to be there to direct traffic to the voting entrance.

Poll workers in South Salem said they had not experienced any problems, though there had been a steady stream of voters throughout the day. 

Ballots there had already been transferred from the orange emergency bags to locked blue boxes, which were to be transported to the Board of Elections under police escort.

The BOE location where they were to be counted was, oddly enough, in Ardsley.