Photo Courtesy of Prince William County SchoolsA representative with the Prince William Electoral Board said voters should trust that their ballots will be counted even when machines do not scan the ballots due to machine or ballot errors.
Two Haymarket precincts had difficulty with the scanning of ballots this morning. At Battlefield High School and Tyler Elementary School, some ballots would not scan through one or more voting machines.
Secretary of the Electoral Board in Prince William County Keith Scarborough was aware of the issues. He said all ballots will be counted as long as voters or poll workers placed them in the “Emergency Ballot Box,” as they are instructed to do.
The "Emergency Ballot 'box," is a holding place for votes that have yet to be scanned. Once new machines are delivered, poll workers will attempt to scan the ballots through the new machine. If the ballots still won’t scan, poll workers will then tally them by hand at the end of the evening.
Scarborough said voters should consider those votes “cast.”
“No one needs to wait around,” he said.
Voters can ask to watch as their ballot be placed in the emergency box. Virginia has the advantage of having a paper-trail of its votes.
The Prince William Office of Elections is sending new machines and ballots to Battlefield and Tyler. When the machine refuses to process the ballot it could either be a malfunctioning machine or the machine rejecting the ballot due to a printing error on the bar code, Scarborough explained. Ballots are printed with a bar code indicating its precinct.
If voters still feel they have witnessed something that was done improperly, they can visit the website for the Prince William Office of Elections to contact election officials.
People on socials media complained of the issues at the polls and wondered if they needed to wait around to see that the issue was resolved. Some claimed they called the Office of Elections and alerted Supervisor Jeanine Lawson.
The Prince William Electoral Board is a bipartisan board and the poll workers are a mix of bipartisan people.
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