Westchester Ballot Scanners Fail Countywide on Election Day; Officials Say Every Vote Will Count

Featured photo: Voting booths at a polling place on Election Day (file photo, Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Nov. 7, 2023; not Westchester). Photo: Lorie Shaull, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Ballot scanners at polling places across Westchester County, N.Y., stopped accepting ballots on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3. The county Board of Elections told voters to keep filling out paper ballots, which poll workers are holding in sealed emergency bags to be counted later. Officials said every eligible vote will be counted. The breakdown hit a county that makes up a large share of New York’s closely watched 17th Congressional District.

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What we know

Problems began when polls opened at 6 a.m., with scanners at most polling places reportedly rejecting ballots, Talk of the Sound reported, citing CBS News. Callers and poll workers described failures at sites including the Ukrainian Youth Center in Yonkers, the Hendrick Hudson Free Library in Montrose and Ridgeway Elementary School in White Plains, News 12 Hudson Valley reported. News 12 said boards of elections in neighboring Rockland and Putnam counties reported no machine problems.

The check-in side of the process kept working, Westfair Communications reported: poll workers could look up voters and print ballots, but the machines would not take filled-in ballots. By 9 a.m. the problems were still widespread, according to the Hudson Valley Digger. As of midday Tuesday, none of the outlets we checked had reported that the scanners were back in service or given a time for a fix.

What caused it

The cause has not been confirmed. The Board of Elections first said the paper used for ballots appeared too thick for the machines, according to Westfair and ABC7 New York. The board then issued a corrected statement that dropped that explanation and described only “an issue involving paper ballots,” FOX 5 New York and Talk of the Sound reported.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., said in a social media post that officials did not yet know whether the ballots or the machines were at fault, and that the board was working with its vendors, FOX 5 reported. The board said it was in constant contact with state officials, county government and poll workers, and apologized to voters and poll workers for the inconvenience, according to Westfair.

What voters are being told

The board told voters to keep completing paper ballots as poll workers instruct. Those ballots go into designated orange emergency ballot bags, which the board said are secure and monitored and will be counted under applicable election procedures, FOX 5 reported. News 12 reported that the bags go to the Board of Elections at the end of the night and that the bagged ballots will be counted before ballots cast through the machines; the board has not itself specified that order, Talk of the Sound noted.

Local governments repeated the message. The towns of Lewisboro and North Salem told residents to check in at their usual polling place and said ballots would be held in orange bags, MyRye.com reported. The League of Women Voters of New York State said voters who prefer to use a machine, and have time, can return once the machines are fixed. The Election Protection hotline, 866-OUR-VOTE, received dozens of calls Tuesday morning, Talk of the Sound reported.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said every vote is going to be counted, and County Executive Ken Jenkins acknowledged the disruption, according to Talk of the Sound. New York Attorney General Letitia James said her office is monitoring the problem and is in touch with state and local boards of elections, and told Westchester voters they can still safely cast ballots at their polling places, FOX 5 reported. Westchester District Attorney Susan Cacace pointed residents to the attorney general’s Election Protection Hotline, 866-390-2292, to report election misconduct, MyRye.com reported.

Not every voter waited. At Horace Greeley High School, a New Castle resident told the Hudson Valley Digger that some voters left without waiting for paper ballots. News 12 reported that some voters at Ridgeway Elementary were uneasy about leaving their ballots in bags and were looking to vote elsewhere.

Why it matters: NY-17

Westchester is a key battleground in the 17th District race between Lawler, the Republican incumbent, and Democrat Cait Conley, ABC7 reported. The district has 562,169 enrolled voters: 40% in Westchester, 40% in Rockland, 14% in Putnam and 6% in Dutchess, according to the Hudson Valley Digger.

Both candidates urged people to vote. Lawler told voters not to leave the polling place without voting and said every ballot will be counted, FOX 5 reported. Conley said there were technical problems with scanners in Westchester, according to ABC7, and said every vote cast would be counted and that polls were open, according to Westfair.

The outage drew claims of cheating from some Republican figures on X, including Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., the Washington Sun reported. The Board of Elections has attributed the problem to the ballot paper, and no official we checked has reported evidence of tampering.

What happens next

Polls stay open until 9 p.m. Bagged ballots will be taken to the Board of Elections after polls close, and officials say they will be counted under state procedures. The Washington Sun reported that the scanner failure may force election workers to count votes by hand. The Boston Report will not report a winner in NY-17 until the Associated Press or another major outlet calls the race. Follow results on our Election 2026 tracker and Congress tracker, and find more coverage in Politics & Government.

Sources

• FOX 5 New York: Westchester County ballot scanners down due to issue with paper ballots
• News 12 Hudson Valley: Voting machine problems reported across Westchester County as ballots placed in bags
• Westfair Communications: Problems reported with voting machines in Westchester
• ABC7 New York: Election Day scanner problem affects Westchester polling sites
• Talk of the Sound: Westchester Voting Machines Fail Countywide, Election Officials Retract Explanation for Ballot Problems

Additional sources

• Hudson Valley Digger (David McKay Wilson): Voting machines snafu in Westchester has voting machines down countywide as voters given paper ballots
• MyRye.com: Westchester County Faces System-Wide Voting Machine Issues on Election Day
• The Washington Sun: Ballot Scanners Fail Across New York’s Westchester County