County reports few problems at polls; paper ballots used for time at Foxdale
By Pete Bosak  Centre Daily 15 May 2007

BELLEFONTE — County officials say voting is going well even though a computer glitch kept voting machines silent for nearly two hours in one Centre County precinct and human error caused several other polling places to open about 15 minutes late.

“Considering this is the second full run, I think things went great,” said Centre County Commissioners Chairman Chris Exarchos of the county’s computerized voting machines.

The polls at Foxdale had to be done with emergency paper ballots until about 9 a.m., when technicians were able to correct a computer glitch that rendered every voting machine there useless, said Centre County Elections Director Joyce McKinley.

While the machines were down, 35 to 40 paper ballots were cast, she said.

“There were emergecy ballots in use, so no one was turned away,” Exarchos said.

Polls opened about 15 minutes late at several other sites across the county due to human error, mostly not arriving early enough to get voting machines up and running, county officials said. One of them was at the HUB on the Penn State campus but, with students gone, it had little effect, McKinley said.

“Everything is running smoothly as far as we know,” said Centre County Commissioner John Saylor, who chairs the county’s elections board.