A small number of polling locations across the United States reported technical problems with how ballots were cast during the midterm elections, leading officials to push back closing times so that voters would not lose the opportunity to vote.
In Westchester County, New York, north of New York City, officials said the machines designed to automatically read physical ballots were running into trouble because the paper the ballots were printed on was too thick.
Reporting from Tarrytown, New York, Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey said election officials were collecting the ballots so they could be counted manually at a later point. The machines are made by Liberty Vote, a company that was previously called Dominion and that had a rocky history with US President Donald Trump, who had accused it, without evidence, of misrepresenting voting counts in past elections.
"Election officials are reassuring that they will be counted manually after everything is done," Saloomey said. "And we don't know of this issue in other districts across New York or the United States, and there are dozens that do use this system."
County officials said on Tuesday that the ballots would be transported to the Board of Elections with a police escort and counted there with attorneys and representatives from all parties present, a precaution intended to prevent the spread of any "conspiracy" theories.
Several other places around the country also saw technical issues cause delays. In Broward County, Florida, voting was held up for 20 minutes at the start of the day because a new safety feature malfunctioned.
In North Carolina, the Board of Elections was considering extending voting by an hour in seven counties after widespread "technical issues" were reported.
In Arizona's Maricopa County, a polling station set up at a school was temporarily closed following a power outage.
And in Pennsylvania, voting was extended by half an hour in several counties because of what officials described as "machine setup issues".
