Westchester County's Magical Boxes and Paper Miracles
Every ballot scanner in the county failed at 6 a.m. Four explanations followed. The county and the state agree on none of them.
“There is a problem with every ballot scanner in Westchester County.”
The 17th District is one of the closest House races in the country. It includes most of northern Westchester. On the one day that counts, in that county, the counting machines did not count.
The story changed. The scanners didn't.
Nobody has said. At the close of Election Day: a countywide failure and no explanation that the county and the state agree on.
There is a signed record.
9 NYCRR 6210.2 “Testing of all voting systems shall be conducted by the county board before the use of the system in any election.” Results, “including the final errorless test, shall be certified as accurate by the county board commissioners or their designees.”
U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION Test ballots after printing. “Paper stock that is of the wrong weight or grain direction may cause ballot scanners to jam.” Pull test ballots “from the top, middle, and bottom” of the stack.
The running count went dark.
A working scanner keeps a running count at the polling place, all day, ballot by ballot. That number is a check on ballots being added or removed later. For most of today, that check did not exist. Ballots went into emergency bags.
What is left: the poll book, where every voter signed in. And custody of the bags until they are opened.
An investigation has no deadline. An election does.
Every voter marked a paper ballot. Paper can be counted again. The question is when.
Four records.
A board that did its job loses nothing by releasing these. A board that will not release them has told us something.
