Technical problems and ballot shortages disrupted voting in North Carolina, Chicago, Kansas and New York on Election Day, prompting North Carolina officials to extend hours at five precincts and officials in the other two places to send additional ballots.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections extended voting at five precincts in four counties due to “stoppages in voting” on Tuesday, the board said in a statement.
A computer outage at a Columbus County polling place led the board to prolong voting by 45 minutes, according to local outlet WECT.
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The issues that resulted in voting delays varied by county, the board said. Shorter extensions were granted in Lenoir, Wilson and Hertford counties.
“During every election, minor disruptions arise such as power outages, tabulator issues, printer jams, longer lines than previously anticipated,” the board’s executive director, Sam Hayes, said at an Election Day news conference. “These are not indications of malicious activity, and the processes are in place to respond to each scenario.”
Voters arriving after 7:30 p.m. at the five precincts will cast provisional ballots, and state law allows the board to extend hours only for the length of the disruption, which must be at least 15 minutes.
Multiple polling places in Chicago faced ballot shortages.
ABC7 reported issues in one precinct, with voters saying they were unable to vote as the polling place ran out of ballots and electronic machines were not working.
Other locations also reportedly ran out of paper ballots, including one place that voters said had been out of paper ballots since 9:45 a.m. local time.
The Chicago Board of Elections told the outlet that it was printing and delivering extra paper ballots, and possibly extra touch-screen voting machines, to several precincts.
The board said it needs names and contact information from voters who had to leave without voting, and who cannot return or reach a vote center before 7 p.m., to get a court order to hold a precinct open.
In Kansas, Leavenworth County officials said that a ballot shortage at one polling place was due to an error in the number of ballots ordered.
“The shortage was discovered early and efforts to correct the mistake began immediately,” it said in a statement.
The polling place needed 1,000 ballots but received 100. Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab’s office said 900 more were delivered that morning.
And in Westchester County, N.Y., a printing error by the county’s Board of Elections put a single town’s mayoral race on every countywide ballot, causing scanners to reject ballots across the county on Election Day.
• Kerry Picket contributed to this report.
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