Voters are reporting issues at multiple polling stations in Westchester County. The New York’s attorney general says she is monitoring the situation.
Reports of problems came in from New Rochelle, North Salem and Ossining. At St. Paul’s Church in the latter, people said voting machines rejected all ballots. They said ballots were put in a bag for later counting.
Ballots are getting stuffed into bags in Westchester County.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said the problem could take many hours to fix, when asked by reporters outside of a polling location in Queens.
“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,” Hochul said. “There’s a lot of planning that goes into anticipating the worst case scenarios and I’m grateful that the Republicans and Democrats are working together to resolve this.”
The problem appeared to stem from the “wrong size paper,” the governor said.
Less than an hour after issuing a statement blaming county-wide voting problems on “the thickness of paper ballots,” the Westchester County Board of Elections issued a correction.
The new statement removes the word “thickness.” Here is the updated statement:
“The Westchester County Board of Elections (BOE) is aware of an issue involving paper ballots that is preventing voting machines from accepting ballots at polling locations throughout the County. The Westchester Board of Elections wants to reassure every voter that your vote matters, your ballot will be secure and your vote will be counted.
