Voters Find a Few ‘Glitches’ at Polls

By SHAKIRA SEALEY

New Yorkers who headed out to vote on Election Day experienced few problems at the polling sites except for malfunctioning optical scanners — many in Brooklyn — and complaints about the small print in the text of the referenda.

Most of the broken scanners were in Brookyn’s 52nd Assembly district.

“What I’m understanding is that there was some issue with the backup portable memory devices coming lost in transit,” said Board of Elections Director Michael Ryan, “and then when they went to set up machines, it delivered a error message. So we had to dispatch technicians.”

But one election watchdog painted a less rosy picture.

“ We found a troubling number of broken machines scattered across the city and ballot’s poor design and small font size caused problems for many voters” said NYPIRG’s Gene Russianoff.

The optical scanners have made a return after being replaced by the old lever style voting machines in the runoff elections. Even though the optical scanners are supposed to be an improvement from the lever style voting machines, many doubt this. The machine creates a façade of it being totally electronic. However, the machine still requires voters to fill out a paper selecting their choices by bubbling it in.

Wayne A. Lamont, worker at a polling site in Midwood. reported a good turnout overall however there were some glitches. He said: “ Aside from the issue of the print being too small, some of the paper provided to voters had typos that listed the mayoral candidates twice, thus making voters bubble in their choices twice, causing their ballots to be rejected by the scanners. As a result, voter’s were frustrated as they had to start their ballots over and wait on long lines.”

“ Most older people have difficulty with the scanner even though it’s very, very, very easy,” said Belinda R Branch, table inspector at the site. “The older people are used to and like the older machines.”

Overall, a lot of complaints were reported to the Board of Elections, NY1 news, the NYPIRG helpline as well as social media about difficulty in reading the six-point font at some poll sites. “ The font was so small you couldn’t see who you were voting for,” said voter Nancy Brady. Magnifying glasses and sheets were provided along with a large poster of the ballot to accommodate this problem. Special machines were also provided, offering braille as well as machines for the disabled and hearing impaired.

“Like I said on our website, we have the large poster size ballots when you come into the polling place which calls directly in relation to our acknowledgement that the font size was an issue” said Ryan.

Overall, a majority of poll sites have reported a light turnout and fairly orderly voting. Most of the sites didn’t have long lines, chaotic conditions, harassment or electioneering. “ The process went smoothly for me. There wasn’t a long line and my ballot was accepted with no problems,” said Lanisha Jenkins, a voter in Bedford Stuyvesant.