Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins held a press conference at 1 pm Tuesday afternoon, Election Day, November 3, 2026. He expressed outrage over widespread ballot printing errors affecting 44 municipalities on Election Day, November 3, 2026.
Due to unreadable barcodes, poll workers are using emergency orange and blue bags to collect paper ballots. Officials are currently reprogramming accessibility machines to serve as backup scanners, and while results may be delayed, all votes cast by 9 p.m. will be counted.
Below are the highlights of his comments. You can also watch the full press briefing below.
See our prior stories on the election snafu.
- The County Board of Elections is in charge of running elections. They are a bipartisan group and they report up to New York State government. There is no reporting relationship to the county government or the county executive.
- The County Board of Elections has representatives from both the Democratic and the Republican parties.
- Tajian M. Nelson, Democratic Commissioner
- Douglas A. Colety, Republican Commissioner
- Jenkins: “the situation is completely unacceptable. My job is to look out for the voters here in Westchester, and you’re furious, and I am as well”
- The problem was caused by the printer in the printing of the ballots. There was an error in the barcode printed on the ballots and that could not be read by the machines. Reports early this morning that the error had to do with the thickness of the paper the ballot was printed on are incorrect. There were no issues with the machines and no software issues.
- There were no issues during early voting. The printing of those ballots for early voting is a completely separate process and is done at each individual early voting location.
- There was a single community in Westchester that Jenkins declined to identify where there were no issues today. Everywhere else in the county, all other 44 municipalities had issues with their ballots.
- Ballots across Westchester are being put into emergency orange bags. Some places have run out of orange bags and they’re using other Board of Election-approved emergency bags, apparently the color blue.
- All polling locations have a single “Plan B” machine in place that is typically used as a handicap-accessible machine. As of this afternoon, election officials are reprogramming these machines so that officials can use these machines to scan the paper ballots.
- It was not completely clear if paper ballots will all be fed into Plan B machines at polling stations or whether the Board of Elections will do this at another location after polls close at 9 pm tonight.
- It appears likely that election results will be slow to come in. It may not be available as fast as usual due to the ballot snafu.
- All votes will be counted and anyone in line to vote by 9 pm tonight will be able to cast their vote.
