The entire electoral leadership of Montgomery County met Tuesday with state investigators to discuss voting irregularities that took place nearly five months ago. State officials are trying to determine whether any laws were broken when normal voting procedures broke down in the Nov. 2 election.
As expected, investigators interviewed election officials Tuesday at the County Government Center. The meeting was closed to the public and press. It is not known when a decision will be announced. The State Board of Elections asked for an investigation after poll workers in several precincts — hampered by laptops that would not boot up with electronic poll books — let some 700 Montgomery County residents vote before it could be determined they were registered and in the correct precinct.
When a would-be voter cannot be authenticated in advance, the person is supposed to vote by paper form, according to a regulation that has since been turned into a law. Paper ballots can be set aside if the person turns out not to be registered. Votes cast electronically, as these were, cannot be recalled.
However, all who cast ballots during the computer outage turned out to be registered voters, though several voted in the wrong precinct. No votes need to be set aside or recalled. The irregularities did not affect the outcome of the vote.
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