Printer Friendly Version - One Branford Polling Machine Glitches; Town Voting Tops 38% by 1 p.m.

Early morning voting was temporarily halted at Branford's District 4 polling place when poll monitors caught a tabulator problem on the ballot scanner. Following procedure, the scanned ballots were collected and sealed and will be scanned into the back-up machine, which was installed and brought online within five minutes's time by the town's Registrars.Photo by Pam Johnson/The Sound

Election Day voting got off to a brisk start in Branford at 6 a.m. and has been continuing at a steady pace as the day progresses, with just one slight disruption- a malfunctioning ballot counter on a scanning machine -- slowing down voters for about five minutes at approximately 7:30 a.m. in District Four.

District Four poll monitors contacted the Branford Registrar's office to report its ballot scanning machine's ballot counter was "not properly progressing," Democratic Registrar of Voters Dan Hally told Zip06.

The machine was replaced with a back-up in a process that took between three to five minutes, with all neccessary procedures followed to ensure all ballots would be properly handled and counted, said Hally. The Secretary of State's Office was also contacted as part of the process.

"Marion and I both went up there and replaced it by state guidelines. It was all right by the book," said Hally. "We have a backup scanner for every district; and we have backups for the backups."

Hally and Republican Registrar of Voters Marion Burkard responded in person to oversee the machine change-out and ballot recovery, temporarily stopping the election for just a few minutes while the ballots collected during the first hour and half of voting were removed, secured and sealed, to be scanned and counted later today.

"These first ballots are going to be resubmitted into the new tabulator at the end of the night," said Hally, adding the problem was "mechanical."

"You can have the best car in the world, but even Rolls Royces break down," said Hally.

The two Registrars then headed back to their offices on Kirkham Street to continue monitoring calls and reports coming in from the town's seven voting places as well as Town Hall, which is Branford's registration/voting place today for the state's first Presidential Election Day Registration session.

As in past elections, Branford Registrars take an hourly count from the polls; which is something that the state is also asking for, the first time this year, said Burkard.

By 1 p.m. with all districts reporting, 38 percent of Branford's 20,050 registered voters had cast their ballots. If the trend continues, the Registrars predict some 80 percent of Branford voters will come out to the polls before voting ends at 6 p.m. today.

Branford has seen a surge in voter registrations which brought the total number of electors up from 17,890 in January 2016 to 19,963 by November 1, the last day for regular voter registration prior to today's election. The addition of Election Day Registration has added to that number with 121 newly registered voters casting their ballot at Town Hall by 1 p.m. today.