New voting system experiences problems

MERCER, Pa. -- Things didn't go as smoothly as officials had hoped with Mercer County's new touch-screen electronic voting system in Tuesday's primary.
An early morning technical problem in Greenville resulted in some precincts using emergency paper ballots for a short period, but the real snafu came late in the evening.
James Bennington, county director of registration and elections, said the Greenville problem resulted in some hand-counting of ballots that slowed the process, but a bigger problem occurred when an electronic information packet bearing the results of voting in a Farrell precinct was apparently mislaid between the precinct and the courthouse.
It took some time to track down those numbers, Bennington said. Instead of wrapping up around 10:30 p.m., the final results weren't available until about 12:30 a.m. today.
Bennington said some visitors from Florida and Mahoning County were in Mercer to see how the new system worked.