Counties keep elections on track during midterm

Key Takeaways

Counties across the country faced obstacles in administering the midterm elections, including voting machine errors, flooding and false text messages sent to voters.

Allegations of touchscreen machines switching votes gathered tens of thousands of likes, shares and views on social media leading up to Election Day. Jefferson County, Texas, removed three voting machines after reports of ballot selection issues, tested them and found no errors, according to Aaron Kelley, Jefferson County clerk and elections manager.

“Our emphasis was having the voters double check,” Kelley said. “There’s a review process in the software, and then in Texas law, they have two opportunities to go back to the check-in table, spoil the ballot and receive a new one.”

Despite the usual election difficulties, the county successfully administered the election, Kelley said.

“[We faced] a lot of obstacles,” Kelley said. “Anytime you’re running something this big, and with the kind of advertising dollars that were going into this, and then voter expectations, it’s kind of like preparing for a party, and you don’t know how many people are going to show up, or where they’re going to show up.

“So, the logistics side of it was the biggest part of it, but we well succeeded.”

A new feature intended to help Broward County, Fla., poll workers issue the correct ballot in precincts split by redistricting incorrectly flagged some ballots as wrong. The resulting delay of roughly 20 minutes led some voters to leave the polls. The problem was fixed quickly and didn’t affect any votes cast, according to Joe Scott, Broward County supervisor of elections.

“This feature was put in place to prevent voters from getting the wrong ballot,” Scott said. “So, the initial reports that came out was that everybody had the wrong ballot, which was terrifying. And of course that wasn’t the case, it was just that the feature wasn’t working properly.”

The technical issue is a reminder for election workers to be proactive and test extensively before something has the chance to go wrong, Scott said.

“The feature was a good idea, just something went wrong, and I think we definitely should have done more robust testing … and that’s what we will do in the future,” Scott said. “So, that will be the new protocol, just like we do with a lot of other things. There’re probably some other things that haven’t gone wrong yet that we should do more robust testing on, and that’s been the conversation internally among the leadership team here.”

Flooding in Broward County also forced officials to move one polling place because voters would have been unable to reach it, according to Scott.

“There was one way to get to that building, and you couldn’t pass that road, so we needed to move,” Scott said. “Our 26-foot truck was able to go in there, get the equipment, get everything and move it to another [location] just a couple precincts away.

“… It would’ve been a problem if there wasn’t enough parking [at the new polling location] or enough space, there’d be crazy lines, so this was a location where we could fully set up the second precinct with all the same equipment, the same number of booths, the same number of our scanners. Everything would be the same, and also parking was ample.”

Voting machines across Westchester County, N.Y., were unable to accept paper ballots on Election Day. The Westchester County Board of Elections initially said the thickness of the paper ballots caused the issue but later removed that explanation from its statement. Ballots were instead placed in designated orange emergency ballot bags.

After the polls closed on election night, the county’s Board of Elections released a joint statement saying the ballots were secure. They were being taken under police supervision from polling locations to the Board of Elections facility, the statement said and would remain under police protection until counting began at 11 a.m. the next morning, Nov. 4.

“All procedures, under the direction and oversight of the Board of Elections Commissioners, will be carried out in an orderly, transparent and efficient manner, consistent with the security requirements established and the standards of election administration that Westchester County voters expect and deserve,” the statement reads. “We remain committed to protecting the integrity of the election and ensuring that every lawful vote is counted.”

In Fulton County, Ga., more than 1,000 early voting ballots were not scanned properly because of technical issues at two advance voting locations. One scanner malfunctioned, reporting a paper jam error when none had occurred. The other shut down when a voter using a wheelchair accidentally rolled over its power cord, and efforts to restart it were unsuccessful.

The County Board voted to rescan the ballots affected by the malfunction and to move the memory card from the scanner that shut down to another scanner to finish processing. If the transfer is unsuccessful, those ballots will also be rescanned.

Numerous Fulton County voters also reported receiving false text messages telling them to vote at incorrect polling locations. Fulton County said on social media that it did not send the texts and that voters should verify their polling place on the Georgia My Voter Page or by calling the Elections Hub and Operator Center.