Mostly Republican Ballots Fail to Scan in Pennsylvania County Election, Stoking Concerns
A number of ballots couldn’t be scanned during local elections this week in a southwestern county in Pennsylvania, triggering fresh concerns about election integrity.
The ballots, mostly from Republican voters in Fayette County, were missing bar codes that typically help facilitate electronic scanning.
“What we know at this point in time is that a bar code that’s required to allow the paper ballots to be scanned at the polling places was missing,” state Rep. Matthew Dowling, a Republican, told The Epoch Times.
George Rattay, chairman of the Fayette County Democratic Party, was present when the issues began around 7 p.m. on May 18. He said nobody initially knew what the problem was. He and others went to the county Bureau of Elections and found out it was a bar code issue.
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Some voting machines in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, were rejecting ballots as residents headed to the polls on Tuesday to vote on several local races, according to a new report.
The Fayette County Bureau of Elections told KDKA, a local CBS affiliate, that several precincts were having difficulty scanning bar codes on all ballots, and several voters told the outlet that their Republican ballots were not accepted. Chris Varney, an elections judge, told the outlet the issue was initially believed to be affecting all ballots, but officials then determined the problem only affected Republican ballots.
Both Republicans and Democrats are vying for the positions of recorder of deeds, jury commissioner, magisterial district judge, City Council member, and several school board seats.
Some Fayette County voters found their ballots were rejected by the scanning machine on Tuesday because they were missing bar codes due to a printing error.
Commissioner Scott Dunn said they received word that âmanyâ Republican ballots and some Democrat ballots were printed without bar codes. As of late Tuesday afternoon, Dunn said he couldnât give a total number of ballots that would have to be counted by hand.
Dunn said poll workers were told to put the ballots that could not be scanned into the emergency slot in the machines, and assured voters that they would be counted.