Politics

Texas County Extends Voting Time Thanks To Polling Dysfunction

(Photo: ROBERT SULLIVAN/AFP via Getty Images)

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Jack McEvoy Energy & Environment Reporter
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Several states are experiencing problems with voting machines as Americans continue to cast their ballots at polling centers across the country.

Polling stations in Texas’ Harris County will now stay open until 8 p.m. CST on Tuesday after District Court Judge Dawn Rogers signed an order to keep all of the county’s voting sites open until 8 p.m, according to the Texas Tribune. The voting extension came after the Texas Organizing Project filed a lawsuit earlier on Tuesday seeking an extension due to a “delay in opening numerous polling locations” across the county.

Voters in Pennslyvania’s Luzerne County are claiming that voting machines ran out of paper, meaning that some voters had to cast provisional ballots while a poll worker drove to get more paper, according to ABC News affiliate WNEP. Luzerne County election officials told WNEP that voters who were forced to cast a provisional ballot should not be worried about whether their vote will be counted.

Just hours after polls opened on Tuesday, tabulation machines began malfunctioning in Arizona’s Maricopa County and voting machines are experiencing issues in Mercer County, New Jersey, according to county officials.

The Maricopa County Elections Department announced that there are problems with precinct-based tabulators that paper ballots are fed into and said that they are sending technicians to address the problem, according to a tweet. (RELATED: POLL: Blake Masters Takes First Lead In Dead-Heat Senate Race)

“Technical staff are working to resolve an issue with tabulators and investigating the cause … people can still check in and then vote their ballot at the voting booth,” the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Once complete, they can insert their ballot in the secure slot on the ballot box where it will be counted at the Tabulation and Election Center.”

Maricopa’s elections department also said that people can still cast their votes into secure ballot boxes if the tabulator at their voting site is not working. Roughly 20% of polling places were experiencing the issues, according to a reporter from 12 News in Phoenix.

In addition, election officials in Mercer County, New Jersey, announced early Tuesday it was experiencing multiple issues with voting machines.

“The Board of Elections has advised the county of issues with voting machines. Poll workers will be on hand to walk voters through the process. The board is working with Dominion, the machine maker, to resolve the issue,” the county announced on Facebook.

A notice on the website of the West Windsor township said that voting machines in “each district across the county” were down.

“On behalf of our NJGOP legal counsel and election integrity team, I want to make crystal clear to the voters of Mercer County that in spite of reported problems with scanners on voting machines in Mercer County, this issue does not affect their voting experience at all,” New Jersey GOP Executive Director Tom Szymanski said in a statement. “Voters can be completely rest assured that NJGOP is ensuring voters’ rights are protected at all phases of the process and that their vote counts.”

The Mercer County Board of Elections, the Mercer County Democratic Party and the Luzerne County Bureau of Elections did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

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