Voting at two polling places ran into some unexpected delays at the beginning of this General Election Day Tuesday.
The polling place at Christ United Methodist Church in Makiki had, at first, an inoperative ballot counter machine.
Things backed up a bit as about 25 voters waited in line. Instead of the machine electronically accepting paper ballots fed into it, voters had to instead place their ballots into the machine’s side slot, uncounted.
After some repair, the counter machine was working again, and voter Annie Hiller was the first to feed her ballot into it. She signed a paper, stating that she saw the previous ballots that were fed into the side slot taken out, processed and counted.
“The crew did their due diligence, saying that the box that had the paper ballots was empty, and protocol was followed,” she said, “and I’m happy to vote.”
There also were some initial problems at the Wilson Elementary School polling place in Kahala.
Voting machines weren’t turning on, but according to a spokesperson at the Office of Elections, troubleshooters were sent and the problem was resolved.
The delay did not stop people from voting there.
