Unique | Right here’s the actual offender of the huge Election Day issues in Cambria County, Pennsylvania

EBENSBURG, Pennsylvania — An issue with paper ballots has thrown Election Day into chaos in deep-red Cambria County, Pennsylvania — forcing officers to hand-count many 1000’s of votes by hand within the vital swing state.

The ballots had been printed improperly by William Penn Printing and couldn’t be scanned correctly by election machines, Commissioner Keith Rager advised The Publish.

Officers stated all votes will nonetheless be counted — however ballot ends in the county of 133,000 will seemingly be delayed on Tuesday evening.

A choose additionally agreed to maintain polls open an additional two hours within the county, till 10 p.m., to make up for the issues.

Rager stated 1000’s of freshly printed ballots, which do work within the voting machines, had been rushed from Pittsburgh, about 70 miles away, to polling websites throughout the county.

Shortly after 1:15 p.m. ET, officers started distributing a batch of “good” ballots that didn’t have the printing points to polling websites.

“I would like folks in our county to know that we’re doing the whole lot we will. This was thrown at us at 7 o’clock this morning,” Rager advised The Publish.

“Every thing’s secured.”

Cambria County went for former President Donald Trump by about 68% in 2020.

Officers bought stories shortly after polls opened at 7 a.m. that election machines weren’t scanning the ballots, in response to Rager.

“Initially, we had thought that it was a software program difficulty, and we had been making an attempt to right. Upon additional investigation, we discovered that there was a difficulty with the ballots not having the ability to be scanned into the system,” Alex Ashcom, Cambria County’s chief clerk advised The Publish.

“In response to this, we issued directives to the entire different polling precincts to nonetheless take ballots, nonetheless preserve folks voting, and to gather them and depend them by hand, somewhat than by utilizing the machine as a backup.”

The county’s officers had scrambled to hustle a brand new cargo of about 35,000 “good” ballots that might be learn by election machines into precincts all through the county.

“No person is throwing ballots out,” Rager stated.

“Beginning tomorrow we’re going to discover out who’s accountable,” he added of the poll printing snafu whereas stressing that the speedy focus Tuesday is conserving issues working as easily as attainable.

William Penn Printing didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Tuesday.

“If this occurred in Pittsburgh or Philly, this could have been large. It’s large sufficient already,” he added concerning the scope of the issue.

Voters who arrive at polls after 8 p.m. will solid their votes by way of provisional poll, in response to the Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s Workplace.

Rager stated he didn’t understand how badly the issues would sluggish the Cambria County election outcomes. Nevertheless, he stated, “inside motive tonight, folks will see outcomes.”

Nonetheless, the county shouldn’t be allowed to begin counting ballots till 8:01 p.m. ET in line with state regulation, Rager stated.

“There’s 3,000 counties in America, why did it should be this one?” one native man was heard muttering exterior the Cambria County Courthouse.

Poll troubles in Pennsylvania are notably noteworthy provided that the Keystone State has the biggest variety of electoral votes of the swing states in play on Election Day.

Trump has a 0.6 proportion level edge over Vice President Kamala Harris within the newest RealClearPolitics mixture of multi-candidate polling. The forty fifth president had flipped the state in 2016 however misplaced it in 2020.