Westchester scanners failed after late programming change, state says

New York's State Board of Elections now says a late programming change knocked out ballot scanners across Westchester County, the district at the center of Rep. Mike Lawler's House race.

According to CBS News' live updates, the state board said at 1:36 p.m. ET that a late programming change in one municipality left Election Day scanners elsewhere in the county unable to read some ballots. The board said the affected scanners rejected ballots rather than miscounting them, and that it was working to restore scanning.

That is a different explanation from the one voters got first. Patch reported that the county Board of Elections initially blamed the thickness of the paper ballots, then backed off that explanation. The board apologized and said, "Every eligible vote will be counted."

In the meantime, voters are being told to keep voting and drop their ballots into orange emergency bags, which are kept secure and will be counted under applicable procedures. County Executive Ken Jenkins called the situation "unacceptable" and a "debacle," and promised a bipartisan review once it is resolved, Patch reported. Lawler's campaign said every scanner in the county was affected. His challenger, Cait Conley, said voters can still vote and every vote is being counted.

Nothing in these reports shows anything beyond a technical failure, and we are not claiming otherwise. Officials say the ballots are being held, not discarded.

Our take: a programming change made after initial equipment testing, in a county with one of the closest House races in the country, deserves a full public accounting. Who made the change, who signed off, why it went in late, and why the first explanation was blamed on paper stock and then dropped are fair questions. A bipartisan review should come with a public report, not a press release.

Elsewhere: Oklahoma County's Election Board said it had received reports of machine problems at multiple polling locations. News 9 reported that affected ballots are going into locked emergency bins to be counted Tuesday, that technicians were being sent out, and that Board Secretary Doug Sanderson said such issues are not unusual. In Georgia, CBS reported Fulton County had paper jams at one location and a power issue at another, affecting about 1,000 early ballots, with a public rescan planned tonight.