According to a joint message being sent from the two Registrars of Voters, Fred DeCaro and Mary Hegarty, problems have been encountered with tabulators reading ballots for District 1.
This was reported at the polling place, Julian Curtiss School.
The message said all tabulators are tested with actual live ballots pulled from the same packages used on election day. Mr. DeCaro confirmed and reviewed the tapes himself Tuesday morning when the issue was reported. He explained there are also always two tabulators at a polling place – a main and a spare.
Simultaneously Ms Hegarty found a similar problem while processing early voted ballots beginning at 6:00am.
“We have determined this is not a programming issue and we believe it may be a misalignment on certain ballots printed,” the Registrars said. “It is not happening to every ballot in a package, and is only happening to ballots in District 1 (not 1A). The tabulator is sensitive to make certain no ballots from another district are used, or ‘fake ballots.'”
At the polling place, voters are instructed to place those ballots into a locked auxiliary bin. A team of counters being hired by both the Republican and Democratic Registrars is being deployed who will begin counting those ballots at 6:00pm so the results will not be delayed.
For the early voted and absentee ballots, the registrars already have teams who handle hand counts, because hand counts are always anticipated for absentee votes (and they expected the same for early votes because they were not placed directly in the tabulator).
The registrars said printing problems were not common.
“The first we have ever had in my 16 years as a Registrar,” DeCaro said, adding, “But they do happen.”
Here is an example of a much larger printing issue happening Tuesday in a California county: https://www.redding.com/story/news/local/2024/10/30/shasta-county-elections-reports-ink-problem-while-processing-ballots/75947021007/