The outcome of a local election in New Jersey was changed after officials uncovered a malfunction with voting machines.
A tabulation malfunction within Election Systems and Software voting machines caused some votes to be double-counted in six voting precincts in Monmouth County. According to the New Jersey Globe, the problem was “not discovered until an unrelated issue caused the Board of Elections to launch an internal investigation.”
As a result of the irregularity, the result of one school board race in Ocean Township will have to be changed.
Initially, Steve Clayton defeated Jeffrey Weinstein by just 20 votes — 3,523 to 3,503. But when the tabulation errors were corrected and the vote recalculated, the result showed that Weinstein had actually won by a single vote.
The candidates were notified of the development on Tuesday.
Clayton responded by telling CNN that he is “not giving up yet,” while Weinstein, who was an incumbent, was shocked that such a significant error had occurred. Clayton took office earlier this month.
Meanwhile, spokesperson for ES&S, Katina Granger, told the New Jersey Globe that an audit revealed the problem was an “isolated incident” that “occurred due to a human procedural error.”
In July of 2022, upon request, ES&S technicians were sent to Monmouth County to investigate reports of slow performance on the county’s internal network. During troubleshooting, technicians uninstalled and reinstalled the county’s election management software. A human procedural error during reinstallation excluded a step, which optimizes the system database and ensures USB flash media cannot be read twice during the results loading process. Because the database was not optimized, the user was not notified when the USB flash media were loaded twice into the results reporting module.
Now, according to the New Jersey Globe, the Monmouth County Board of Elections is expected to seek a court-ordered recount of the Ocean Township school board race.
“I’m excited about the opportunity to keep serving the community,” Weinstein told the publication. “I’m glad the problem was identified and that they’re taking steps to rectify it.”
The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office allegedly learned of the tabulation error last week. It’s not clear why state officials did not come forward about the problem sooner.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!