Nolte: PA’s Cambria County Extends Voting Hours After Software Malfunction

A software malfunction that caused ballot scanning issues in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, has resulted in the Court of Common Pleas extending voting hours an extra two hours, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The Pennsylvania Department of State Tuesday xweeted Tuesday morning:

The Department of State is in contact with county officials in Cambria County. Voters are continuing to vote by paper ballot, in accordance with normal operations, while the county resolves the issue with in-precinct scanning. We are working with the County to resolve this technical matter and remain committed to ensuring a free, fair, safe, and secure election.”

The issue involved the machines that scan your paper ballots. The machines stopped scanning and voters were given the choice of placing their ballots in a lock box where they had to trust their vote would be properly scanned (and therefore counted) after the issue was fixed, or told to return later in the day.

Cambria’s County Commissioners filed the emergency request to extend voting hours, WTAJ Altoona reported:

The Board has filed a Court Order extending the time to vote within Cambria County. No one should be turned away from the polls if they wish to cast their vote. Cambria County Board of Elections took measures to have IT specialists called to review the software issue. There is a process in place for issues of this nature. All completed ballots will be accepted, secured, and counted by the Board of Elections. The County Board of Elections has express voting machine at precinct locations to continue to allow voting electronically, while still allowing hand ballots to be cast.

The request was quickly granted.

Cambria is an important county for Republicans. In 2020, we’re told Trump beat Biden by 37 points there, 68 to 31 percent. Trump received 48,085 votes to Biden’s 21,730.

With the polls telling us Pennsylvania is virtually tied and the electoral college telling us that Pennsylvania could very well decide the election, Cambria County could make the difference.

John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.