Westchester County ballot scanners down due to issue with paper ballots

And it went on and on. And I got to tell you, Antoine, a lot of people are not happy. It's not sitting well with a lot of people. Before you hear some of what some people had to say here in Westchester County, we should point out, Antoine, I mean, have you ever heard of something like this? It is not common. This is not something that you would expect. And from what we understand, I asked this specific question in the news conference today. It's like, when did you guys find out? Apparently, county officials learned of this today. So a question that our producers and our editorial leads at Fox 5 had, Antoine, that we were able to get a trust. In that news conference was, okay, the machines, right? So this machine and the others, are these the same machines that were used during early voting? And no, they were not. And another important piece of information, I don't want to get too complex here, but it's important to understand this situation in its entirety, is that when you go to vote early, during early voting, ballots are printed on site. So the ballots today for election day, for that final voting day, however you want to phrase it, they were pre-printed. And basically, it's a printing issue because the way they were printed, these machines were not reading. The ballots today, and that's essentially what got officials into a rush to find out exactly what had happened, into a rush to plan a news conference, to address, as you can imagine, the media has a lot of questions because people are not happy. Here's what some people, Antoine, had to say to me a little earlier today about all this. Anybody can change my vote or throw my paper away. This is a very important election, and democracy is at stake, and yet none of the machines Do the machines in Westchester County work? Something's not right. You get your ballot, like normal, you go and you fill it out, and you bring it back in, you hand it to someone, they fold it over, put it in a bag, the bag goes in a box, they said, well, that's it, that's all we do. It's just like anyone else who sends it in through an envelope, and it gets to get counted. And to just add to the layers here, Antoine, we learned at the news conference at 1 o'clock today that apparently the machines at one voting location in Westchester County did work, but all others did not. And we weren't really, we didn't really get to the bottom of why. But the bottom line is that there is an issue with the way these ballots were printed. That's what's created the problem. And a lot of people are not happy because this is happening on Election Day. Will it delay the results? I know you're going to ask me. Ask me that question. Well, what we know is that these emergency ballots, as soon as again, as soon as a ballot goes into an orange bag, it becomes an emergency ballot. They cannot count those ballots until after nine o'clock, until after the polls close, Antoine. So you can just imagine now they're going to have to go back and they're going to have to have all of those ballots scanned. It is definitely going to be a time consuming process. We know that there are There are situations where recounts happen, and I guess this kind of feels similar to that. But here's another question, since you took my other one, Ms. Bertini. Do they test the machines before? I'm thinking like you. Uh-oh. Stephanie, did anyone ask the Westchester County executive there, do they test these machines ahead of the election, you know, a dry run or anything? The question was asked, and basically he said, of course, the county executive is not in charge of this. He said they should have been. He'd assume he doesn't know exactly what happened, but he did specifically say that they learned of the problem today. And he did specifically say that this machine and all the others that were to be used today are different from those used in early voting. So that is a big question that we really don't have a clear answer to. Were they tested? If they were tested, It's interesting because not everybody that we talked to today was outraged. One person in particular, I'm thinking of a soundbite that our colleague Robert Moses got for us when he talked to someone earlier today. One woman said, look, what's the difference, I'm paraphrasing here, there's no difference if you just mail in a ballot, but I got to tell you the sentiment here in terms of the today is like, no, we came there to do what we want to do, what is our civic duty, our civic right, and we do not feel comfortable. That was the overwhelming sentiment, Antoine, that we're able to report as a result of how people are reacting to this. All right, Stephanie Bertini, you've got a situation on your hands. Thank you for being with us for Newsroom Live. I know we will see you in our evening newscast. Thank you for bringing us up to speed.