Overview
- Voting machines across Westchester County began rejecting paper ballots on Tuesday, forcing poll workers to place completed ballots in orange emergency bags under bipartisan watch.
- County crews transported the secured emergency bags under police escort to a central Board of Elections warehouse where scanning and counting resumed under party observers.
- The New York State Board of Elections identified the cause as a programming/update mismatch that left some Election Day machines running older software that could not recognize the ballots.
- The malfunction delayed results in closely watched contests, including the Lawler–Conley race, and prompted campaign legal filings and supervision by the New York Attorney General’s Office.
- Election experts and officials emphasized that affected scanners rejected unreadable ballots rather than miscounting them and said the incident highlights gaps in late software rollouts and communications that officials plan to review.