The Republican National Committee’s Election Integrity team is fighting back against chaotic polling place disruptions.
Ballot scanners went down in Westchester County, N.Y., when polls opened Tuesday morning, and a Northern Virginia voter reportedly showed up to vote and was told he already had. Across America, the RNC’s Election Integrity team is tackling chaos at the ballot box.
‘This would not have been caught if we had not gone in person.’
In Westchester, voters are filling out paper ballots and dropping them into orange emergency bags. The county’s scanners refused deposited ballots just after the polls opened at 6 a.m., according to CBS New York.
County Executive Ken Jenkins blamed a printing problem that left ballots unreadable to the machines, according to the outlet. The state Board of Elections pointed instead to a programming change made to a contest in one municipality after the county’s equipment had been tested.
Jenkins assured voters that a bipartisan team will investigate.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said every scanner in the county had a problem, and whether “the ballot or the machine” was to blame was unknown.
“Every ballot will be counted. Stay on line and vote. Do not leave the polling place without voting,” Lawler posted.
The RNC said it had deployed extra observers in Westchester and that both Republicans and Democrats were seeking a joint court order to move ballot counting to the County Board of Elections rather than a local polling place.
The stakes are high for Lawler. His re-election race against Democrat Cait Conley in New York’s 17th District is one of the most closely watched in the country, and the district covers most of northern Westchester. Blaze News’ Poll Watch has Lawler leading his opponent by just a tenth of a point.
“Long-established emergency ballot procedures have been implemented, where completed ballots are secured, under bipartisan control, and will be counted,” the New York State Board of Elections said in a statement, according to CBS New York.
RELATED: Florida voters: Has your polling station moved?
Andrew Leyden/NurPhoto/Getty Images
The RNC said it had resolved a polling place problem in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, a county Scott Presler reminded followers “ran out of paper in 2022.” This time around, one precinct was missing a scanner-attached ballot box, according to a voter’s account shared by Presler.
“7:45 am Butler Township Luzerne County District 8,” the voter wrote. “The scanner box for my district was not available, so they put my ballot in a holding box in the other scanning machine. I was assured it would be scanned as soon as the scanning box arrived.”
“A scanner was there, but it was not attached to a box that the ballots would fall into,” the voter wrote.
The RNC posted, “ISSUE FIXED,” on X about two hours after Presler flagged the problem.
“The RNC flagged the polling-place concern with the Luzerne County Bureau of Elections and made sure it was resolved,” RNC Election Integrity posted at noon.
The Department of Justice said Tuesday it would send monitors to Luzerne County as part of its first-ever effort to monitor elections across all 50 states. Westchester and Georgia’s Fulton County are also on the DOJ’s watchlist, alongside Fairfax and Prince William Counties in Northern Virginia.
The RNC is piling on with additional observers as fast as it can get them to polling stations.
“We will have extra observers present to monitor the tabulation of ballots affected by the scanner issues,” the committee posted.
The RNC’s team also intervened in Ohio, where a bomb threat caused polling location Beverly Elementary School to be closed. Following RNC action, the school has been reopened for voting.
Northern Virginia suffered from an even stranger issue. Kaylee McGhee White claimed she and her husband checked in at their polling place Tuesday morning, only to be told he had already voted.
“Showed up, checked in, were immediately told a mail in ballot had already been submitted for my husband,” McGhee White wrote in an X post. “I cannot overstate how important it is to show up today. This would not have been caught if we had not gone in person.”
Poll workers eventually told her husband they had to cancel the mail ballot before he could vote in person, she said.
“We of course have no way to verify that this is what they did. But we did our part and showed up, and he was able to submit his ballot in person,” McGhee White posted.
McGhee White also claimed on X that the RNC’s Election Integrity team called her husband within five minutes of the initial complaint.
The integrity team is working feverishly to ensure voters are able to submit their ballots on Election Day.
“The RNC will NEVER stop fighting to protect the vote. See an issue? REPORT IT,” the committee posted.
The Department of Justice and the RNC Election Integrity team did not immediately respond to Blaze News’ requests for comment.
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Department of justice, Election day, Election monitors, Mike lawler, Republican national committee, Scott presler, Politics
