By Jim Kenyon
Tuesday, November 03, 2009 at 6:48 p.m.
Read more: Local, State, Election
For the first time, many Central New York voters are using the new optical scan voting machine. Oswego County has done away with voting booths and is using this new voting system exclusively.
At the Fulton War Memorial polling station, many people had to be introduced to the new system. After checking their voter registration, election workers gave voters a paper ballot. Some needed help filling out the form and scanning the ballot.
Lorelei Hanczyk said her ballot "went right through successfully, beautiful."
But Robert Lee had to fill out his ballot twice after placing an "x" in a box that needed to be completely blackened.
Unlike the lever voting booth, the actual ballot is dropped into a locked box behind the optical scan voting machine. That way there's a permanent record for a recount to verify the election. Plus the machine tells you if you made a mistake. "If you do something wrong, it spits it back at you." Dan Farfaglia said, "that way you can fix it before your vote gets registered."
Oswego County's Board of Elections had to re-examine and test one machine in Schroeppel after they say a seal was accidentally broken.
Other problems were reported to Action News. In Onondaga County, two polling places didn't open on time, two scanner machines went to the wrong polls and one had the wrong paper ballot.
Oneida County had "lots of jammed levers on old machines" according to one election worker.
Cortland County said it had several complaints about a lack of privacy in filling out the ballots.
In Cayuga County, one machine "crashed" but officials say they had a replacement.
Madison County experienced "lots of paper jams" in the voting machines.