Scanners Fail At Hillsborough Locations

By TBO.COM | Staff
Published: November 04, 2008

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8:50 a.m.: A steady stream of voters carrying absentee ballots continues to file into the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Office.

In the background, two dozen clerks handle telephone calls from voters ranging from problems with address changes to not knowing where to vote. One person visited the Falkenburg Road office hoping to apply a driver's license and was cheerfully turned away.

Reports from several precincts have indicated that scanners have broken down at several locations, including precincts 422, 526 and 750. When that happens, the procedure is for a clerk at the precinct to open the emergency ballot box on the scanner machine and deposit ballots.

The ballots that cannot be scanned are dropped into the locked box. When voting closes this evening, the clerk and a representative of both political parties will withdraw the ballots and scan them on a machine that works.