New York State Board of Elections Issues Statement on Westchester County Ballot Scanner After Machines Reject Ballots at Up to 332 Polling Sites Affecting as Many as 250,000 Votes

The New York State Board of Elections released a formal statement on Election Day addressing the countywide ballot-scanning disaster in Westchester County, where voting machines at the vast majority of polling locations rejected paper ballots from the moment polls opened at 6 a.m.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, the chaos began immediately and forced voters across the county to place completed ballots into orange emergency bags (later supplemented by blue ones when supplies ran short) for later counting under bipartisan oversight.

County Executive Ken Jenkins, a Democrat, later described the situation as a “debacle” and “unacceptable,” stating that as many as 250,000 ballots across 332 polling sites were impacted.

According to the state board’s statement, the root cause was a late change to a contest in one municipality that required updated election programming after the initial preparation and testing of Election Day equipment. That updated programming was tested and deployed for early voting and for Election Day machines in that single municipality.

Everywhere else in Westchester, however, the machines continued running the original programming and therefore could not recognize or accept the Election Day ballots.

The board is now working with the Westchester County Board of Elections to deploy replacement election media containing the updated programming.

The immediate priority, officials said, is to restore scanning capability to at least one machine at every polling location, with more machines brought online throughout the day. In the meantime, emergency ballot procedures remain in effect.

The state board insisted the scanners rejected unrecognized ballots rather than incorrectly tabulating them, and that “every valid vote will be counted” with established canvass, recanvass, and post-election audit procedures remaining in place. “Accuracy will never be sacrificed for speed,” the statement declared.

This official explanation came after the Westchester County Board of Elections initially blamed the thickness of the paper ballots, an explanation it quickly walked back, before the state clarified the programming mismatch.

Early reports from local outlets and voters in places including New Rochelle, Ossining, North Salem, and Croton-on-Hudson described machines rejecting ballot after ballot from the first voters of the day.

The statement reads below:

“The issue affecting voting machines throughout Westchester County resulted from an update to the county’s election programming that occurred after the initial preparation and testing of Election Day voting equipment. A change affecting a contest in one municipality required updated election programming, which was subsequently tested and deployed for early voting and for Election Day machines in that municipality. However, Election Day machines elsewhere in the county continued to use the original programming and therefore could not recognize and accept the ballots being used for Election Day.

“The New York State Board of Elections is working closely with the Westchester County Board of Elections to deploy replacement election media using the updated programming previously tested for early voting, which encompasses all contests throughout the county. The immediate priority is to restore scanning capability to at least one voting machine at every polling location, with additional machines being brought online as the day progresses.

“In the meantime, voting continues through established emergency ballot procedures. Completed ballots are securely maintained under bipartisan oversight and will be scanned and counted in accordance with established procedures. Restoring scanning capability will also allow emergency ballots cast earlier in the day to be processed as part of the established counting process. There are no identified concerns with the ballot paper or other physical characteristics that would affect its ability to be scanned.

“Importantly, the affected scanners rejected ballots they could not properly recognize rather than incorrectly tabulating them. Every valid vote will be counted, and the established canvass, recanvass, and post-election audit procedures will remain in place. Accuracy will never be sacrificed for speed.”

BREAKING: New York State Board of Elections issues statement addressing ballot-scanning problems in Westchester County.

Westchester County voting machines issue: Late programming update for one municipality wasn’t loaded on most Election Day machines, so they rejected ballots they couldn’t recognize.

NY BOE + county deploying fixed media. Emergency ballots in use.

— I Meme Therefore I Am (@ImMeme0) November 3, 2026

Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, whose competitive 17th Congressional District includes much of Westchester and is widely viewed as a potential House-control race, posted early on X that every ballot scanner in the county had a problem. He urged voters not to leave without casting a ballot and later noted that both sides had agreed to central counting under attorney supervision after polls close.

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