Editorials: Secretaries of State: A Key Front in the Battle to Protect Voting Rights | Steve Rosenthal/Huffington Post

Across the country we are witnessing a wholesale attack by the right wing on workers, unions, women’s health, the environment, LGBT issues, civil rights, immigration and nearly every other right, protection and civil liberty that Americans hold near and dear. In recent years, Republicans have invested in and won key state legislative victories, which has resulted in lopsided redistricting that will make the work for progressives even more difficult at the state and federal level for years to come. At the cornerstone of the GOP strategy is an assault on voting rights in state after state, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in this country in decades. The right wing understands that their views are out of step with the rapidly increasing progressive majority in America — women, people of color, union members, LGBT and young voters. And the only way they can win is by attempting to prevent this new progressive majority from voting. If we are to turn things around, finding new ways to defend fair and equal access to the ballot must be a top priority for progressives.

South Carolina: Clemson program could bring online voting to South Carolina | The State

As the calendar rolls into 2014, the political season moves into hyper mode as state voters prepare to go to the polls to elect a governor and two U.S. senators and make other decisions in a mid-term election. Memories of long lines at the polls and questions about the state’s electronic voting machines are likely to recur. A Clemson University professor says he has some technological solutions to those problems. Juan Gilbert, chair of human-centered computing at Clemson, envisions a time when voters will be able to cast their ballots online without leaving home, and when each vote can be verified without relying solely on electronic data. …  The state spent more than $34 million for about 11,400 iVotrinic voting machines in 2004 and 2005, according to a report released last year by the state Legislative Audit Council. That’s about $3,000 per machine, compared to about $500 for an iPad.

New York: City Council Members Consider Internet Voting and Free Airport WiFi | TechPresident

Even as the Presidential Commission on Election Administration is still considering improvements to the U.S. election system, politicians on the local level are also looking at ways to address voting problems that came up in recent elections. The New York City Council Technology and Government Operations Committees on Wednesday held a hearing to consider the “Promise and Perils of Internet Voting” in municipal elections. Committee Chair Bronx City Council member Fernando Cabrera said he was drawn to the potential of Internet voting to address long lines, low voter turnout and save costs, citing successful precedents in other countries such as Estonia. Voter turnout in New York City’s recent mayoral general election hit a record low of 24 percent. Election officials and advocates cited security and cultural barriers to the widespread adoption of Internet voting, but pointed to other technological improvements that could help improve the voting process. New York City Board of Elections Executive Director Michael Ryan said he and other commissioners had not had enough time to come to a consensus on the issue. But he said he felt the cultural challenges would be one significant obstacle. “It would be a wholesale change really in the way business is done, right down to the way campaigns are run,” he said, noting the practice of poll watchers at polling places. “From a cultural perspective we’ve gotten very used to voting in a particular way … Voting is a private thing but yet a very public thing,” he said, noting the traditional gathering at polling places. “The resistance may be in the breaking down of the actual rituals more so than the technology itself.”

Virginia: Meet the man behind the voting machines | Richmond Times-Dispatch

As attorneys and judges in Richmond carved out the ground rules for the statewide recount in the attorney general race last week, Spooner Hull logged more than 2,000 miles on Virginia roads in five days to make sure that the voting equipment will be ready to process tens of thousands of ballots in the coming days. Hull, 67, is a state-certified vendor who sells and services voting machines in 40 localities statewide. He has worked for decades in the background, doing his part to protect the integrity of the electoral system and allow democracy to run its course, unhindered by technical errors that could cause dramatic shifts in Virginia’s political landscape. “Here in Virginia, we have a very good election system, and it works,” said Hull, who bought his company, Atlantic Election Services Inc., from his father 33 years ago. Since then, he has serviced countless local elections and every presidential and state election — including two previous statewide recounts. His years in the business have strengthened his faith in the state’s electoral system. “I can assure you when any state in this country undertakes a rewrite of their election law, they will come to Virginia and look at our code and how we do things,” Hull said.

India: Congressmen complain to PM about alleged tampering with Electronic Voting Machines | The Times of India

The issue of alleged tampering with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the state assembly elections is being raised by the Congress in a serious manner. After the party’s state unit made a written complaint to the Election Commission early this week, the Congress candidate from Sawai Madhopur constituency Danish Abrar has sent a complaint to the prime minister’s office. Abrar, who lost to BJP’s Diya Kumari, has asked for an examination of the EVMs used and an investigation into the alleged tampering with the machines. Abrar, along with his party colleague Prashant Bairwa, who lost from Tonk’s Niwai seat, addressed a press conference in this regard on Saturday.

India: Electronic Voting Machines were tampered with, alleges Rajasthan Congress | The Hindu

Days after the Congress suffered a humiliating defeat in the Rajasthan Assembly election, the party demanded an enquiry into Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) programmed in Ahmedabad that were used during the polls. The Congress’s Legal and Election management committee filed a complaint with the Election Commission on Thursday, casting aspersions on the functionality of the EVMs, and seeking a probe by high-level technical experts into their programming. “There have been complaints from several party workers and candidates belonging to different Assembly constituencies that the programming for these machines had been tampered with,” Sushil Sharma, president of the Congress’s legal and election management committee.

South Carolina: Survey notes accessibility problems for Richland Co. voters with disabilities | The State

When Richland County voter Dori Tempio went to cast her ballot in November’s library referendum, a poll worker held the voting machine on her lap. She asked for privacy. He turned his head. “The person could see what I was voting,” said Tempio, 43, who uses a wheelchair. “Other people walking by could see what I was voting. … That makes you somewhat uncomfortable.” Tempio said she considers voting to be a sacred right; she has voted in every election since she turned 18. But a survey of Richland County precincts by Protection and Advocacy for People with Disabilities, Inc., found many residents with disabilities faced barriers when trying to exercise their right to vote Nov. 5. The survey identified a lack of accessible ballots as the top issue, affecting 63 percent of Richland County precincts.

Virginia: Machines for 11th District vote to cost Roanoke $36,000 | Roanoke Times

Roanoke voter precincts will have electronic voting machines for the Jan. 7 special House of Delegates election – but at an unexpected cost of $36,000. The impending recount in the Virginia Attorney General election required all voting machines to be locked down, including those in Roanoke. Though the recount will take place next week, the machines must remain in lock down for a period in case the one of the candidates chooses to contest the integrity of the results after the election. That means the city won’t have its own machines available for the special election for the 11th District House of Delegates seat vacated by Democrat Onzlee Ware, who resigned citing concerns about his mother’s health. Voter Registrar Andrew Cochran had to go in search of 95 machines to borrow or rent for the day, and eventually found them at a North Carolina vendor called Printelect, with which the city has done business before. “They moved at lightning speed, and I appreciate that,” Cochran said.

Virginia: Registrars prepare for recount in attorney general’s race | News & Advance

The Lynchburg region cast just over 3 percent of the votes that will be counted — again — next week to determine who will be Virginia’s next attorney general. Each of the localities gave Republican Mark Obenshain a healthy majority over Democrat Mark Herring, ranging from 53 percent of votes cast in Lynchburg to 75 percent in Bedford and Campbell counties. Obenshain, who lost by 165 votes out of 2.2 million cast in the Nov. 5 election, asked for a recount. It will be conducted Monday and Tuesday in each city and county, at local-government expense. Voter registrars said the recount will take roughly half a day in the four counties surrounding Lynchburg, because they use touch-screen voting machines that recorded vote totals on printed tapes. Those tapes can be tabulated again in just a few hours, according to the registrars in Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford and Campbell counties. But in the Hill City, where two-thirds of the voters chose to use paper ballots, election officials are preparing for an all-day job requiring them to run 13,000 paper ballots through a scanning machine again. A few hundred ballots, mostly absentee ballots sent by mail, will be counted by hand.

Editorials: It’s time for Guam Election Commission to update election equipment, policies | Pacific Daily News

With the 2014 elections fast approaching, it’s imperative that the Guam Election Commission moves with urgency to address its outdated equipment. The 2012 elections made it clear that the island’s current tabulating machines are old and falling apart. During the 2012 General Election, the Election Commission had problems with at least three of its four tabulators. Those problems drew attention to the age of the machines. The four tabulators are based on technology from the 1980s. It’s time for the Election Commission to move forward with its primary focus on updating equipment and technology. GEC Executive Director Maria Pangelinan said the commission is expecting to announce an invitation for bids for new tabulators by next month. Pangelinan and the commission need to ensure that these new tabulators fit the needs of our community and come with the appropriate support and regular maintenance.

Virginia: Attorney general vote recount, some by hand, to get started Dec. 16 | Washington Times

A recount of the votes in the Virginia attorney general’s race will begin Dec. 16, but a number of jurisdictions, including Alexandria, are facing hand recounts thanks to voting machines considered outdated by the state’s electoral board. Only 165 votes of more than 2.2 million cast separate Democrat Mark R. Herring and Republican Mark D. Obenshain — a 0.007 percent difference that amounts to the closest finish to a race in Virginia history. A three-judge recount court in Richmond on Wednesday announced the process would begin Dec. 17 and 18 for a majority of the state’s voting districts, though Fairfax County, the state’s largest district, was given the go-ahead to begin its recount a day earlier, on Dec. 16. Donald Palmer, secretary of the Virginia State Board of Elections, said officials would prefer the ballots be tabulated by optical scanners. In some cases, though, jurisdictions use machines that can’t isolate just one of the races that appeared on the ballot — in this case, the attorney general’s race.

Virginia: Mark Herring, Mark Obenshain recount to start Dec. 16 | Associated Press

Democrat Mark Herring’s 165-vote win over Republican Mark Obenshain in the close race for attorney general is headed to a recount Dec. 17 and 18, with Fairfax County getting a one-day head start. Richmond Circuit Judge Beverly W. Snukals scheduled the recount at a hearing Wednesday in which attorneys for both candidates debated the ground rules for what is expected to be the state’s most extensive recount ever in the closest statewide race in modern Virginia political history. Snukals also scheduled a tentative Dec. 19 date for a recount court to rule on disputed votes in the recount. Snukals agreed to allow Fairfax County to begin its recount Dec. 16, with the remaining localities joining in the following two days. Fairfax County is the state’s most populous and uses a variety of voting machines that could extend its recount beyond two days. Donald Palmer, secretary of the State Board of Elections, attended the nearly four-hour hearing to assist Snukals and attorneys for Obenshain and Herring navigate election law and various schedules to ensure local elections officials can conduct the recount. Asked outside court whether he was confident in an accurate recount, Palmer said, “Absolutely.”

Virginia: Attorney general recount locks up voting machines | Roanoke Times

Every state voting machine used in the Nov. 5 election is in lockdown mode — including those the Roanoke Voter Registration office would like to use in January’s special election. The Roanoke Voter Registration Office is putting on a special election Jan. 7 but doesn’t have any machines to record the vote — at least at the moment. Thanks to the impending recount in the squeaker of an election for Virginia attorney general, every voting machine in the state used in the Nov. 5 election is in lockdown mode to protect the results. Republican Mark Obenshain requested the recount after the state board of elections certified a 165-vote victory for Democrat Mark Herring.

Virginia: Some voting equipment doesn’t meet requirements | The Washington Post

Virginia elections officials say some voting equipment used in the November election doesn’t meet state requirements. State Board of Elections chairman Charles E. Judd said that there should be uniformity in the election process. “This vast diversity of equipment in the state is problematic,” Judd said. “We should have two kinds of equipment and not 10 or 12 kinds around the state. We should have some uniformity so it applies to the code and it makes it more efficient.” Judd and other board members discussed the issue Monday during a meeting, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Editorials: A vote for more efficient Virginia elections | The News Leader

The State Board of Elections met Monday and some of what its members had to say wasn’t good. Virginia has too many different kinds of voting machines, and too many of those are outdated. This would be disturbing even if the attorney general’s race wasn’t heading to a recount. Worse, in our view, is that the old voting machines are part of the problem: Our entire voting system is due for a retool. We encourage the state board to take the lead in upgrading not only the equipment but the process as a whole. Voting in the 21st century can and should be efficient and produce accurate results that reflect the true will of the majority. Turnout last month was 37 sad percent. Distasteful candidates didn’t help; nor did an antiquated system. And when 63 percent of our citizens do not bother to vote, democracy as a whole suffers.

Virginia: Elections officials say some voting equipment is outdated | Richmond Times-Dispatch

State elections officials expressed concern Monday that some of the voting equipment used in November balloting is outdated and does not meet requirements under state law. Don Palmer, secretary of the State Board of Elections, said at a board meeting that some of the voting machines are not able to flag overvotes or undervotes, which would allow those ballots to be inspected manually. Republican Mark D. Obenshain hopes that the proper count of such ballots in the upcoming recount will sway the election result of the attorney general’s race, in which Democrat Mark R. Herring was certified the winner by 165 votes. An undervote would be one in which a selection would be made in at least one race, but not others. Overvotes include ballots in which two candidates were originally marked for a race, but one was crossed out. “The code requires in a recount situation that undervotes, overvotes and write-ins be rejected so they can be analyzed personally by the recount teams and observers of each party,” Palmer said. If there is a dispute over a particular ballot — meaning if the voter’s intention isn’t immediately clear — it would go to the recount court in Richmond, a panel of three judges headed by Richmond Circuit Court Judge Beverly W. Snukals.

India: 10 percent of voting devices malfunctioned in Mizoram polls | Assam Tribune

Ten percent of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines, which verify to a voter that his or her vote was cast as wished, malfunctioned in the November 25 polls in Mizoram, an official said here Monday. “In all 21 VVPAT machines of 212 placed in 10 constituencies in Aizawl district failed. Eleven VVPATs failed during routine checkup a day before the assembly polls, 10 more were unsuccessful during the polling day and had to be replaced,” Mizoram Chief Electoral officer (CEO) Ashwini Kumar told reporters. He said that the Electronic Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL) delivered the machines to the Mizoram election department two weeks late which, coupled with the breakdown of the devices, led to “administrative challenges”.

Texas: Election recount drags on in Comal County | San Antonio Express-News

The recount of ballots cast Nov. 5 in Comal County proceeded Thursday evening under the watchful eyes of staffers from the Texas Secretary of State’s Office. “We’re going to finish today,” County Clerk Joy Streater, the recount supervisor, predicted from the elections office where the recount of 16,000 ballots had commenced at 8:30 a.m. Schertz Mayor Michael Carpenter later said he’d heard it might be 11 p.m. or later before results would be released for city council races there and for state constitutional amendments and contests in the Comal Independent School District and the Cibolo Creek Municipal Authority.

South Carolina: 1,114 Richland County ballots not counted | The State

A state election audit revealed Thursday that Richland County officials failed to count 1,114 absentee ballots when finalizing results of the Nov. 5 city and county elections. Howard Jackson, county election director, said the electronic ballots came from a single voting machine used by absentee voters at the election office. This was the first countywide election since Richland County’s botched 2012 general election, considered one of the worst in state history. At that time, precincts across the county did not have enough voting machines, leaving some voters in line for up to seven hours, and hundreds of ballots turned up uncounted days later.

Maryland: State prepares move back to paper ballots for elections | Maryland Reporter

Local election officials are already expressing uncertainty about what could go wrong when the state switches from an electronic voting system to using paper ballots in the next two years. By the 2016 presidential elections the state will replace touch-screen machines and make a fundamental shift to the way voters cast ballots. “This is a big transition for us,” said Montgomery County Board of Elections Deputy Director Alysoun McLaughlin. “Everything from set up, to warehouses, to the voting experience is based around touch screen [voting] machines.” McLaughlin attended a demonstration last week in Baltimore where Dominion Voting Systems showcased a paper ballot scanning unit to local elections officials that the state will consider purchasing for use in 2016. … State election officials would not provide an estimate of the cost to transition the state to the new paper voting system. Instead, the state board referred to a 2010 study conducted for the state by RTI International which estimated that initial implementation would cost approximately $37 million. The initial implementation costs would include optical scan voting units, ballot marking devices for the disabled, ballot on demand printers and booths and carts.

Ohio: GOP looks to turn clock back on voting | MSNBC

Back in 2004, some Ohioans waited in line for 10 hours to vote as President George W. Bush carried the state, and with it, the election. After reforms were put in place, voting went much more smoothly in 2008 and ’12, when Ohio twice went for Barack Obama. So naturally, Republicans are now looking to turn the clock back a decade. Tuesday, the state legislature will hold hearings on four new GOP-backed measures that, taken as a whole, could make voting much harder in the Buckeye State, especially for racial minorities, students, and the poor:
• One bill would reduce the number of voting machines that counties must have on hand, almost inevitably leading to longer wait times at the polls.
• A second would attack the state’s successful absentee ballot program. Last year, Secretary of State Jon Husted mailed absentee ballots to every registered voter, and nearly 1.3 million Ohioans cast one. But the new bill would dramatically limit the period when absentee ballots can be sent, and bar counties from sending them, instead allowing only the secretary of state, with approval from lawmakers, to do so.
• A third measure would cut early voting by six days and end same-day registration, when voters can register and vote on the same day. Voting rights advocates say they expect additional drastic cuts to the early voting period.
• And a fourth would reduce from 10 to three the number of days given to voters casting a provisional ballot to return with the information needed to make their vote count.

Virginia: Herring lawyer: recount “extremely unlikely” to give Obenshain win | Daily Press

State Sen. Mark Herring launched something of a pre-emptive strike Monday, ahead of next week’s certification of the election results in the attorney general’s race. The Democrat currently leads by a scant 164 votes over Republican state Sen. Mark Obenshain. In a conference call with reporters, an election lawyer working for Herring said the small margin is deceptive, arguing Virginia’s rules governing recounts make it all but impossible for Obenshain to turn the tide. The lawyer, Marc Elias, said it’s similarly unlikely that the vote total will budge much between now and the Nov. 25 vote certification. Elias, who lives in Northern Virginia and works at a Washington, D.C., firm, represented U.S. Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota in a 2008 recount that changed the outcome of a close election there. Elias said Virginia election law provides less possibility for votes to change in a recount than Minnesota’s law. Specifically, he said results from touchscreen voting machines, which are used in much of the state, typically don’t change during a recount.

Texas: Comal County voting concerns affect Schertz council races | San Antonio Express-News

A voting machine malfunction in Comal County has forced a recount of the Nov. 5 election results, which include three Schertz City Council races. Comal County officials are trying to determine how 2,415 ballots that were not included in the initial election results were discovered in an audit of the county’s electronic voting machines The revised election results so far have not affected the outcomes of the three Schertz council races – Places 3, 4 and 5. Schertz’s city limits extend into three counties — Bexar, Guadalupe and Comal. Today, Comal County election officials will canvass the results of the Nov. 5 election. After the canvassing , county elections administrator Julie Kassab said the county will request a court order for a recount. “We will canvas the original results from (Nov. 5) even though we know they are inaccurate,” Kassab said. “As soon as we’ve canvassed (the ballots), we will go to the district court judge to request the recount be done as soon as possible.” Kassab said the recount, which will be done by hand, should take three to five days to tabulate.

Virginia: Arlington bar codes examined for vote problems in Virginia | Washington Times

“That’s what a recount is all about,” Mr. McDonald said. “Make sure all the i’s are dotted, all the t’s are absolutely crossed, and there’s no possibility there’s anything else out there we don’t know about. It’s going to be close from this point right here.” When a recount is called, the State Board of Elections first sets the standards for the handling, security and accuracy of the tally. A three-member “recount court” is formed in Richmond and is headed by the chief judge of the Richmond Circuit Court. Two additional circuit court judges are appointed to the board by the chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court. The recount court sets the standards for determining the accuracy of the votes and certifies the election results. Its ruling is final and cannot be appealed, according to Virginia law.

Virginia: Back and Forth in Undecided Virginia Attorney General Race | New York Times

In the week since Election Day, the lead in Virginia’s razor-thin, still undecided attorney general’s race has seesawed. First the Democrat, Mark R. Herring, was up by 32. Then the Republican, Mark D. Obenshain, went ahead by 55 as of Saturday night. He was ahead by 17 Sunday night. On Monday, after the discovery of a voting machine in Richmond that apparently had not been counted, Mr. Herring retook the lead by 117 votes in a race with 2.2 million ballots cast. The final results, almost certainly headed to a recount that could take until late December, will determine if Democrats made a clean sweep of statewide offices after claiming the governor’s and lieutenant governor’s races last week, or a Republican will fill the job that has often been a steppingstone to the governor’s office. The count has fluctuated as local election boards review the ballots first reported after the polls closed Nov. 5, as well as provisional ballots sealed in green envelopes. Local city and county boards have until midnight Tuesday to certify their results.

Virginia: Attorney General race: Herring takes lead, with a recount appearing likely | The Washington Post

Democratic state Sen. Mark R. Herring took the lead in the extraordinarily tight Virginia attorney general race Monday evening, after he picked up more than 100 previously uncounted votes in Richmond. Herring had started the day trailing his Republican opponent, state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (Harrisonburg), by a mere 17 votes out of 2.2 million cast. But as jurisdictions across the state continued to scrub their vote counts, the State Board of Elections showed Herring with a 117-vote lead late Monday. Lawyers from both parties have descended on elections offices in Fairfax County and Richmond. Meanwhile, the campaigns said they were cautiously optimistic but were bracing for a long, drawn-out battle, which appears almost certainly headed to a recount and could seesaw again. “We’re always excited to see the movement go to our favor, and we’re just going to make sure over the next few weeks and however long this plays out that every single vote counts,” said Ashley Bauman, press secretary for the Democratic Party of Virginia. “Because I think in the end, we feel confident that our candidate will be on the winning side.”

Virginia: Extremely close Virginia race once again highlights election errors | Los Angeles Times

An overlooked voting machine, a fight over rules, faulty counts – the almost-impossibly close race for attorney general in Virginia once again has highlighted the errors that slip into U.S. elections. As of Monday morning, only 17 votes – out of more than 2 million cast – separated the two candidates in the race to become the state’s chief legal officer, making the contest one of the closest statewide races in U.S. history. For Virginians, the race – which features two state senators, Republican Mark Obenshain and Democrat Mark Herring – matters in part because the attorney general’s job often provides a stepping stone to the governor’s mansion. People outside of Virginia may be more interested in the proof that 13 years after the contested presidential balloting in Florida, U.S. elections remain rife with small, but sometimes critical, mistakes. Unlike Florida in 2000, however, the effort to correct the errors in the Virginia race has been eagerly watched over – and in some cases spurred on – by a small but eager corps of election devotees who have pored over preliminary vote numbers available on the Internet looking for anomalies and trumpeting their discoveries on Twitter.

Voting Blogs: Democratic Candidate Takes Lead in Razor-Thin Virginia Attorney General Tally | BradBlog

For the first time since the bulk of votes were tallied in Virginia on Election Night last Tuesday, the Democratic candidate for Attorney General, state Sen. Mark Herring appears to now have taken the lead over Republican state Sen. Mark Obenshain in the razor-thin results of more than 2.2 million votes cast. Herring just barely leap-frogged Obenshain’s totals on Monday afternoon after tallies from a voting machine in the city of Richmond — the results of which had been previously missing from official tallies since Election Night — were added to the running totals. The addition of 190 votes from electronic voting machine #3791, plus a few other votes from seven other precincts re-reviewed by Richmond City’s Electoral Board on Monday, resulted in what now appears to be a 115 vote lead for Herring over Obenshain. While the results posted by State Board of Elections (SBE) do not yet reflect that change in the state tally (showing, instead, a 17 vote lead for Obenshain for now), a number of election experts following and closely documenting the post-election canvassing and correction of vote tallies from across the state have confirmed Herring’s new lead. Those experts have been consistently and accurately ahead of the SBE in reporting results in many cases over the past week.

South Carolina: Richland County buying 170 extra voting machines | The State

Richland County’s election director is creating a new position of voter-outreach coordinator as part of efforts to prepare for the June primary. Howard Jackson asked Richland County Council for money to buy 170 voting machines and associated equipment, enough to comply with state standards requiring one machine per 250 voters. But when it came to covering the new $42,500 position, the council balked, trimming Jackson’s out-of-cycle budget request to $615,622.56 – an amount approved Tuesday by unanimous vote. Jackson said he’ll find the money in the election office’s $1.2 million budget to fund the extra position he deems critical this year. … Rush also expressed concern that county voting machines, selected by the state and purchased in 2004, have become obsolete and will have to be replaced before long.

New York: Broken voting machines, mistranslated ballot measures plague low-turnout election | New York Daily News

The modest number of New Yorkers who bothered to vote Tuesday encountered short lines and a good number of busted voting machines, officials said. The problem hit Brooklyn’s 52nd Assembly District hard, where 70 machines at 21 poll sites were out of commission all morning. Voters had to fill out emergency affidavits. Michael Ryan, executive director of the city Board of Elections, said the machines in these neighborhoods — including Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill and Prospect Heights — were improperly set up. “We traced the issue back to a technician who improperly set up the backup memory device,” Ryan said, noting that all the machines were back up and running by 11 a.m. Ballots in Chinese were mistranslated, swapping text for one proposition measure with another.