New York Ballot Scanners Reject Ballots as Midterm Voting Gets Messy

Ballot scanners in New York's Westchester County started spitting out paper ballots almost as soon as polls opened Tuesday morning. Local outlets, citing the county board of elections, say the ballots were simply too thick for the machines to swallow. Westchester County Government hit X to reassure voters: every ballot stays secure and every ballot gets counted. The board says it is in constant contact with New York state officials to get the glitch fixed, and voters are being told to stay in line and mark their paper ballots the way poll workers tell them.

The failure lands in a corner of a state Democrats are watching closely, and it is not the only Election Day headache. Severe weather has scrambled polling sites in several states. Florida officials relocated some stations after back-to-back floods, per the BBC. Utah issued an emergency order early Tuesday letting San Juan County voters return ballots electronically if flooding blocks their travel. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs declared a state of emergency Monday after storms and flash floods, saying the order frees up resources to clear roads, repair infrastructure and help displaced residents.

This is the vote that decides who runs Congress for the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency. Republicans hold both the House and the Senate right now. Democrats need to flip enough seats to take both chambers — and if they do, they can block Trump's agenda and launch investigations into the president and his team. BBC North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher noted that could stretch as far as an impeachment attempt.

All 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats are on the ballot, plus governor races in 36 states and a stack of state ballot measures. Vermont's polls opened first at 5am ET, with New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut and parts of Kentucky and Indiana following an hour later. Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado came online by 9am ET. Closing times vary by state, and affected voters should check with their county election office before heading out — polling places may have moved.

Michigan's Senate race got the final-hour treatment, with Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers pitching supporters on X. El-Sayed posted a montage that included an appearance with former President Barack Obama and told backers the world was watching. Rogers pushed a save-the-state message and shared voter interviews, including one clip calling El-Sayed an extremist. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, voting in Brooklyn, predicted El-Sayed wins on the strength of his cost-of-living message. Asked about Democrat Haley Stevens backing Rogers, Schumer shrugged it off: “Haley Stevens is one vote.”