Voting machines break in Ottawa County

GEORGETOWN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) - A few voting machines in Ottawa County encountered problems early Tuesday, but officials said the problems are resolved.

The ballot machine at Precinct 13 -- which covers an area just to the north of Hudsonville -- was broken when the polls opened at 7 a.m.

A poll worker told 24 Hour News 8 a diverter went bad in the machine. The diverter separates the ballots where a write-in candidate is entered from the rest.

A technician fixed the problem at 8:49 a.m.

The worker said the first 241 ballots cast were deposited in a metal box instead of automatically fed into and tabulated by the machine.

An Ottawa County elections official told 24 Hour News 8 a few voting machines had some similar problems early in the day but they've been fixed.

All ballots on the affected machines will be hand-fed into the voting machine after the polls close at 8 p.m. A pre-selected Republican and Democrat representative will be present when that happens.

Kent County Director of Elections Sue Desteiguer told 24 Hour News 8 Kent County has not had any major issues at the polls.

There have been a couple of precincts that had issues feeding the ballots but they were eventually fed through the tabulator.

Desteiguer said if this happens to you don't worry, your vote will be counted.