ELECTION UPDATE | Counting paper ballots could slow final Trumbull results

WARREN

One Warren city and one Warren Township polling location were without power throughout most of Tuesday afternoon, but held flashlights and used cell phones to provide voters with enough light to fill in paper ballots.

An afternoon wind storm knocked out power to polling locations in eight communities in western Trumbull County, but six generators were provided to six of the locations.

Trumbull elections officials were impressed with images showing poll workers at New Jerusalem Church on Palmyra Road providing flash lights to allowed people to continue to vote.

Poll workers were holding flash lights above tables where voters were filling out paper ballots that were delivered to the affected polling locations.

A poll worker told The Vindicator everyone who wanted to vote at the New Jerusalem location was able to vote, despite the outage, which began around 3:30 at that location.

Mark Alberini, elections board chairman, said as many as 13 polling locations were without power at one point, but some got their power back quickly, others got generators, and two others “were literally voting in the dark.”

Locations that lost power were provided paper ballots to take the place of the electronic voting machines, so there were going to be extra paper ballots to count at the end of the counting process, Alberini said. That could slow down the final vote results.

As of around 6 p.m., the outages were affecting Bloomfield, Mesopotamia, Southington, Farmington, Warren and Bristol Townships, plus Warren, Lordstown and Newton Falls.