As Election Day voting got underway Tuesday morning, election workers and candidates told Halston Media that voting machines across Westchester County were down.
As of 8:15 a.m., the machines remained out of service as officials worked to correct the problem.
A Westchester-based poll worker told Halston Media they had received "no explanation" about the cause of the problem and no estimate about when it would be fixed.
Because Westchester uses paper ballots that are then fed into voting machines, voters arriving at the polls have been able to cast their ballots in elections for Congress, state Senate, Assembly, governor, attorney general, comptroller, judges and local offices throughout the Halston Media readership area.
The Westchester County Board of Elections confirmed the countywide problem, according to News 12, and instructed poll workers to check voters in and provide paper ballots. Completed ballots are being placed in what the campaign worker described to Halston Media as "emergency orange bags" while technicians work to resolve the issue.
As of publication, there was no estimate for when the machines would be back in service.
Don Scott, a Republican poll worker serving at District 2 in Mount Kisco, told Halston Media that a source had attributed the scanning problem to the width of the paper ballots.
Scott said Election Day ballots are preprinted and supplied to polling locations in packs, while early-voting ballots are printed on-site as voters arrive.
The Board of Elections said technicians would be dispatched to polling locations experiencing problems.
Another poll worker told Halston Media there was no estimate as to when the machines would be back online but said all votes would be counted.
The bags will be delivered to the Board of Elections at the end of the night, and those ballots will be counted before ballots cast through the machines.
"Let us be absolutely clear: Every eligible vote will be counted. No voter should be discouraged from participating in this election because of this issue," the Board of Elections said in a statement Tuesday morning. "Your voice matters. Your vote matters. Please stay in line and vote."
Scott said most voters at his polling location were “shrugging and going with the flow,” although he described one "irate" voter who left after saying he would return when the machines were working.
Scott expressed concern that reports of the malfunction could discourage participation.
“IMHO, this is going to have a voter suppression effect, as some people will hear that the machines aren't working and won't vote,” he said.
This is a developing story.
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