Voter Machine Malfunction Appears to Be Nonissue in McClure Race

On Friday, I told you that a voting machine issue has cast a dark shadow on Lamont McClure's slim, 114-vote, margin of victory. Although the voter has authorized me to identify him, I will decline doing so because he is a private citizen and because I have since determined this to be a nonissue.

A citizen voted at SeWyCo in Lower Saucon around noon on Election Day. No matter how often he pushed the Connolly button, the name refused to light up. He spent time pressing it over and over before moving on to cast his vote. Because the second press cancels the vote, he is unsure whether his vote for Connolly was actually ever cast.

Bothered, he returned to the polling station about an hour later. At first, election officials were skeptical, but then one of them tried it and agreed it was a problem, so the machine was taken out of operation until a new light could be located and installed.

Why is this a nonissue? Because Connolly won in that precinct, and the margin of victory appears to be the same as another polling station at SeWyCo.

Here's how the 2 precincts at SeWyCo tallied.

Lower Saucon 7

Connolly 97
McClure 66
There was a 184-voter turnout, and 163 voted in the Council race.

Lower Saucon 8

Connolly 102
McClure 87
In this precinct, 216 people voted, and 189 cast ballots in the Council race.

If one of the machines was defective for any length of time, I would expect to see a wider disparity in the undervote, as well as more narrow margin of victory in one of these precincts. So it appears, at least to me, that this problem did not interfere in any meaningful way with the result.

But I'm still concerned about the "special" machine set up for me in Nazareth (pictured above). Something's wrong with that one.