Voting machine issues affected Westchester county, New York, but emergency ballots were provided to voters
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Voting in US midterm elections took place relatively smoothly nationwide on Tuesday, with only a handful of reported issues as tens of millions of voters cast their ballots.
With control of US Congress in the balance, glitches at polling locations were minimal as Americans lined up to vote.
In Westchester county, New York, voting machines have been unable to scan as many as 250,000 ballots at 332 polling locations. Some machines did not accept paper ballots.
At a news conference, the Westchester county executive, Kenneth Jenkins, stressed that people were still able to vote, and would be directed to use emergency ballots, which would be placed in sealed orange bags and counted later.
Parts of Westchester county are within New York’s closely watched 17th congressional district, where Republican Mike Lawler is in a close race to hang on to his seat.
In Kansas, a polling place ran out of ballots. Officials cited a county clerk error resulting in 100 paper ballots being ordered instead of 100,000.
In Georgia, officials requested permission to rescan more than 1,000 early votes as result of malfunctions with two scanners – one which was run over by a wheelchair, according to WSB0-TV.
Another southern state, Mississippi, reported a late-opening precinct; voting machines being temporarily down; state agency websites experiencing accessibility issues; and voters verifying registration status.
In Tennessee, voters raised concerns with touch screen voting machines that reportedly select Republican candidates when voters attempted to select Democratic candidates.
Like Westchester county in New York, some polling locations in Tennessee and Oklahoma have resorted to using emergency bins for ballots that had complications. They will be counted on Tuesday after polls close. Technicians have also been dispatched across to country to polling locations that are reporting problems.
In North Carolina, the state board of elections will decide on extending voting time four hours longer in counties where technical difficulties affected voting. The board announced that the release of election results would be delayed from 7.30pm to 8.30pm.
Minor voting issues occurred in Milwaukee (where primary voting had issues as well) due to poll worker error, which has been the subject of recent litigation. Massachusetts also experienced minor technical difficulties in four precincts, but officials say they were rectified this morning.
