Voting Machine Issues Reported Nationally

Polling precincts around the country reported a variety of issues with tabulating and ballot-counting machines on Election Day, with a series of glitches and hiccups frustrating voters attempting to cast their votes in the highly anticipated 2022 midterms. 

Some of the problems reported were major. In Maricopa County, Az., officials confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that upwards of 20% of machines there were not functioning as they should have. 

“We’ve got about 20% of the locations out there,” Maricopa Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates told voters on social media, “where there’s an issue with the tabulator where some of the ballots where after the people have voted, they try to run them through the tabulator and they’re not going through.”

County officials were scrambling to fix the issue on Tuesday, with voters being directed to alternative voting methods while the problem was resolved. 

In Mercer County, New Jersey, meanwhile, a “glitch” reportedly caused voting machines there to outright crash, according to CBS News.

County officials were warning that ballot-counting could be delayed on Tuesday night due to the problem. Voters were still able to cast ballots and election officials reportedly said the ballots would eventually be counted once the glitch was fixed; state Attorney General Matt Platkin urged voters affected by the issue to use paper ballots instead of digital voting machines. 

Other problems appeared more minor. Scanner issues in Floyd County, Indiana, were reportedly resolved early on in the voting process, according to WDRB.

A voting site in Albany, New York, meanwhile, also reportedly experienced problems with its ballot counting machine, CNYCentral reported.

A local news outlet reported that the ballots impacted by the malfunction “will be put in an emergency bin to be counted by non-partisan inspectors” who will then “feed the ballots through a working machine.”

Still other polling sites and districts experienced issues and delays unrelated to purely technical problems.

One Houston-area polling location allegedly saw a four-hour delay in ballot submissions, according to the New York Times, due to an election clerk walking off the job site and workers having failed to set up voting machines prior to the opening of polls.

Officials in Philadelphia, meanwhile, said on Monday that ballot-counting could be delayed for up to 30,000 ballots due to an election integrity lawsuit brought by local Republican officials.

In some cases the issue appeared to be related to user error. Another Houston-area polling place reportedly had to order new voting machines after the tabulating program on in-service machines was “closed.”

Nicholas Ballasy contributed to this report.

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