LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Michigan News Source first brought to you the voting machine problems in Lapeer county on election day after getting reports of election workers requesting that ballots that wouldn’t scan be left at the voter precincts for later duplication and scanning.

It turns out that there was a printing problem with the ballots. On the back of the ballots, there are black boxes called timing marks and if they aren’t printed properly, the voting machines will reject them. According to Lapeer County Clerk Theresa Spencer, the printer, Spectrum Printers in Tecumseh, had cut off the marks on some of the ballots.

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In 18 of 49 Lapeer County voting precincts, there were issues with the ballots not scanning. Several residents showed up at the county’s Board of Commissioners meeting after the election to voice their displeasure about how things were handled. After that, the Board then voted unanimously to recount the ballots in the precincts
where there were issues.

Meanwhile, delays in election results were more far-reaching than initially reported. Delayed results occurred in a whopping 65 of 83 counties where election workers drove their unofficial election results to their county clerk offices instead of sending them via modem.

This happened mostly because the 65 counties had decided to phase out the use of modems after learning they weren’t compatible with the upgraded 5G network but there were also concerns about misinformation concerning modem use.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson made the statement, “The unofficial results from polling places are being driven by election workers in vehicles in the many counties that are phasing out the use of modems to transmit unofficial results. This is being done in accordance with guidance issued by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission in order
to prevent any remote possibility of interference, and to counter misinformation that has
been circulated concerning the use of modems.”

Bonnie Scheele, Grand Traverse County Clerk, described the process that occurred in her county. She said, “The votes are recorded onto the election media stick which has been sealed in the machine since the public accuracy testing. At the end of election night they run the results tape. If the results match the number of voters processed, the election media stick can be removed from the machine and placed in a secure transfer bag and resealed. This bag is delivered to the County Clerk on election night.”

She continued, “We upload the results into a stand alone computer (it is not connected to the internet or the county servers) and then create the unofficial reports that we save onto a secure jump drive and take to another county computer to upload the reports. On election night, we are required to go into a secure site to send our unofficial results to the state. Once the canvassers complete the canvass, we send the official results
through the secure website and also send the State the hard copy of the reports.”