Faulty voting machines delay final Election Day tally  (NJ)

Linda Stein/The Times     06 November 2007

Mechanical problems with voting machines in seven of Mercer County's 257 voting districts meant that a complete total of votes cast in the county on Election Day was not available by Tuesday night.

Mercer County Clerk Paula Sollami-Covello said the cartridges that record votes were not removed from seven machines that were defective and had to be replaced by new machines on Tuesday.

More than likely those cartridges contain no votes, but it is possible that one or two of the faulty machines had votes cast on them before they broke down, she said.

Sollami-Covello said the cartridges cannot be removed from the machines until a judge issues an order to do so on Wednesday, so it was not possible to certify the vote tallies in the seven districts on Tuesday night.

The affected districts are: East Windsor 9; Ewing 4; Hamilton 14; Trenton North 3; Trenton North 10; Trenton East 3; and West Windsor 4.

According to Sollami-Covello, 37.25 percent of the county's registered voters turned out at the polls on Tuesday.