Ballot Scanners Fail In Crucial House Race, Votes Forced Into Orange Bags

Republican incumbent Mike Lawler of New York’s 17th Congressional District is urging voters to stay in line as countywide ballot issues are preventing votes from being processed.

“The Westchester County Board of Elections (BOE) is aware of an issue involving paper ballots that is preventing voting machines from accepting ballots at polling locations throughout the County.  The Westchester Board of Elections wants to reassure every voter that your vote matters, your ballot will be secure and your vote will be counted,” the Westchester County Board of Elections, whose county makes up a large part of Lawler’s district, announced.

Congressman Lawler has played a vital role in maintaining the thin Republican majority in the House of Representatives, and many polls have placed his election as a toss-up.

Both Republicans and Democrats are reportedly seeking a centralized way to process the votes and ensure election integrity.

“Every ballot will be counted and we are already in court to make sure they are counted in **one central location** so that our campaign, election monitors, and our attorneys can watch and oversee the process,” Congressman Lawler posted to X.

New York Democratic Attorney General incumbent Letitia James announced that “Westchester voters can still safely fill out and turn in their ballots at their polling locations. Your votes will count.”

In a statement to The Daily Wire, the Westchester Board of Elections said it will release a video apparently aimed at answering some outstanding questions about how this ballot issue occurred. Early on-the-ground investigations by The Daily Wire reveal voting stations following emergency procedure, with ballots folded and placed into orange bags.

One outraged voter told The Daily Wire, “Voters are being asked to place their completed ballots into orange bags to be counted later. I find that extraordinarily troubling. I am extremely skeptical about the integrity, security, and transparency of a process that requires voters to surrender their ballots without the immediate verification of a functioning scanner. What safeguards are in place? Who is handling these ballots? Who is accounting for every single one of them? Who is independently verifying the count?”

Despite online speculation that the ballot issue is tied to a Democratic attempt to “steal” the election, Westchester County is likely to break for the Democratic candidate, Cait Conley. Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump in the county by approximately 25 percentage points in the 2024 presidential race, though she won the 17th District by a much smaller margin.

No reporting or statements have yet revealed how the County was unaware of the issue before the start of Election Day, or how its vendor passed off ballots that could not be properly scanned.

Mike Lawler’s competitive performance in the purple district is partially attributed to strong support in the Jewish Ultra-Orthodox Hassidic communities in New York’s 17th district, who often vote as a bloc. A recent letter issued by leading rabbinical figures in the community endorsed Lawler, along with Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman and state senate candidate Bill Weber.

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