Republican Ballots Fail to Scan in Pennsylvania Election, Stoking Concerns, Dominion Responds

Arizona, Michigan, Georgia ….. now Pennsylvania. This is a national crisis.

Mostly Republican Ballots Fail to Scan in Pennsylvania County Election, Stoking Concerns

A number of ballots couldn’t be scanned during local elections this week in a southwestern county in Pennsylvania, triggering fresh concerns about election integrity.

By: Epoch Times, May 20, 2021 :

The ballots, mostly from Republican voters in Fayette County, were missing bar codes that typically help facilitate electronic scanning.

“What we know at this point in time is that a bar code that’s required to allow the paper ballots to be scanned at the polling places was missing,” state Rep. Matthew Dowling, a Republican, told The Epoch Times.

George Rattay, chairman of the Fayette County Democratic Party, was present when the issues began around 7 p.m. on May 18. He said nobody initially knew what the problem was. He and others went to the county Bureau of Elections and found out it was a bar code issue.

“The majority of them were Republican ballots,” he told The Epoch Times.

A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.

A hand recount was taking place on May 20.

The county said in a statement that the bureau identified and was addressing “a printing issue” with some of the primary election ballots and that the issue was affecting all parties.

“Alternative solutions to the scanning issues were already established and are being enacted. Election officials are currently in direct contact with the judges of elections at all precincts. All judges were trained on these procedures prior to the election,” the county said.

“Every voter will have an opportunity to vote at their polling place. Election officials will ensure every vote is counted.”

Republican county officials helped obtain a judicial order that directed a hand count of all unscanned ballots.

Dowling, state Rep. Ryan Warner, and state Sen. Pat Stefano have issued a right-to-know request seeking records involving ballot and voting machine testing, as well as financial records, including contracts, relating to the printing of ballots and any reports of ballot malfunctions.

“We do want to provide transparency and let our constituents know how this blunder happened,” Dowling told The Epoch Times, adding that the county has not yet said why the barcode was missing on some ballots.

“I’m assuming there was nothing nefarious, although I think that does have to be investigated to see why this happened.”

The issue compounds an already low level of faith among some voters in election integrity, with some of the representatives’ constituents saying they aren’t willing to vote again.

Fayette County District Attorney Richard Bower told CBS Pittsburgh that his office plans to investigate what happened. The office didn’t immediately return a voicemail on May 20.

More over at Daily Wire:

PA County Reports Voting Machine Issues Affecting Republican Ballots; Dominion Releases Statement

“We regret any confusion this has caused.”

By Amanda Prestigiacomo • May 21, 2021 DailyWire.com •

Voting machines in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, caused concern this week when registered Republicans and independent voters were seeing Democrat-labeled ballots on primary day.

Eyewitness News reported Tuesday that they had “received numerous calls from concerned citizens reporting issues with voting machines improperly labeling Republican ballots as Democrat.”

“Because it’s a primary, Democrats and Republicans or independent non-partisans, have a different ballot,” explained Carl Romanelli, a judge with Luzerne County Board of Elections. “When you got into the ballot marking devices, the header on all of the ballots indicates that it’s a Democratic ballot, but then when you proceed to the actual ballot itself, it is the proper ballot for the voter’s party. And when the ballot is printed, it shows that it is in fact the proper ballot.”

Bob Morgan, Director of Elections in Luzerne County, released a statement noting that the issue was caused by a “coding error.” He later emphasized that the problem were not caused by the county and that they are working with voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems to figure out what went wrong.

“Due to a coding error the Republican primary ballot in today’s Municipal Primary election contains an error in the header when displayed on the viewing screen,” Morgan said in a statement. “This error occurred during vendor programming of the device and appears on Republican ballots countywide. The ballot correctly shows Republican candidates, however, the header of the ballot says ‘Democrat.’”

“The function of the device has been thoroughly reviewed and tested and the error appears on the screen only,” he continued. “The ballot prints correctly with the Republican header and contains only Republican primary race results. Republicans also have the option to vote with a provisional ballot that will be later reviewed by the Luzerne County Elections Board should they choose not to utilize the machines.”

“We wish to assure all voters that their ballots will be correctly counted,” the director added. “To ensure proper communication of this situation a sign is being placed in each polling place by the judge of election today and posted on the County website. Elections staff and poll workers are working addressing the issue machine to machine throughout the County.”

It’s been reported that frustrated Republicans and independents confused over the incorrectly-labeled ballots left their polling place (formatting adjusted):

“Unfortunately, this morning, the machines were all shut down and people were losing their patience and leaving,” a voter from Exeter said. The confusion even led some voters to wonder whether their votes would be counted. “It’s disheartenening. When you get a person who gets elected in, did they truly get elected in? That’s the question, and no one can truly answer that,” voter Chris Harding said.

“It took us about probably five weeks. We gave a final product to Dominion,” Morgan said. “There is no evidence of any of this problem on the mail-in ballots which were produced from that file. We’re still working with Dominion to get an explanation as to how this coding error occurred. They were as surprised about it as we were.”

The director emphasized that the issue was not caused by Luzerne County:

Eyewitness News asked Morgan whether there was any possibility Luzerne County could be at fault. We asked, “In that five-week process, is there any possibility it could have been on your end and not theirs?” Morgan responded, “no.”

Dominion released a statement regarding the machine issues, acknowledging the error and assuring the public that “all ballots will be correctly counted.”

“Luzerne County’s election director has confirmed that there is a ballot screen error that is confined to the header on the viewing screen of the machine, and that all ballots are printing correctly with the Republican header and the Republican primary election races,” Dominion said. “As the county has reassured the voting public, all ballots will be correctly counted. We regret any confusion this has caused.”

Dominion has filed multiple lawsuits against individuals and outlets — including Fox News, former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell — for “intentionally and falsely blaming Dominion for President Trump’s loss by rigging the election.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Dominion Responds After Pennsylvania Election Officials Report ‘Coding Error’ With Voting Machines

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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