ELECTION UPDATE | Voting machine troubles in Mahoning County

ELECTION UPDATE | Voting machine troubles in Mahoning County

YOUNGSTOWN

About 20 voting machines in Mahoning County had a “glitch” that caused a delay in counting votes, said Robert Wasko, chairman of the county board of elections.

Each machine is supposed to print three ballot results with one posted at the polling location and the other two coming to the board office at Oak Hill Renaissance Place. The problem with the 20 or so machines is that only one list of results was being printed when poll workers closed the machines.

Direction from board employees corrected the problems and the poll workers were told to push the button two more times to get the two additional ballots, Wasko said.

A procedure with the county’s new paper ballots machine process is postponing results coming to its office.

After the polls closed at 7:30 p.m. poll workers must separate each ballot by precinct — there are two to three precincts for every machine that holds and counts the votes. Then they must count the ballots by hand and make sure that the number of paper ballots matches the number of voters who signed in at the polling locations, said Thomas McCabe, board director.

As of 8:45 p.m. the ballots started to arrive at the board of elections.