Voting ran into local problems in a handful of places on Election Day and the day before — bomb threats that emptied schools used as polling places in Ohio, ballot scanners that failed across Westchester County in New York, closed roads on the Navajo Nation, and an election office evacuated in San Diego. In each case, election officials kept voting going or worked around the problem. This roundup collects the confirmed incidents, with the source for each.
Toledo, Ohio: Bomb threats empty schools, one of them a polling place
Toledo police went to Beverly Elementary School at about 10:30 a.m. ET after a bomb threat was called in to the school, which is serving as a polling location on Election Day. Voters were evacuated while officers searched the building. WTOL reported the threat and the police response, and 13abc reported that the polling location was temporarily evacuated.
A second threat was called in shortly afterward at Monac Elementary School, and that building was evacuated as well. Toledo Public Schools students were not in class on Election Day. Threats also reached other schools in the area on Tuesday morning: Conneaut Elementary and Kenwood Elementary in Bowling Green received threatening calls and were evacuated as a precaution, and WTOL reported a threat and an evacuation at Lake Local Schools.
Update, Nov. 3, 2026 (1:39 p.m. ET): Toledo Public Schools spokesperson Patty Mazur told USA Today that Beverly Elementary received two bomb-threat calls in a row on Tuesday morning — the first at about 10:30 a.m. and the second a few minutes later. Voting at the school was paused while law enforcement swept the building, and the premises were declared safe. Students were not in class on Election Day.
As of early Tuesday afternoon, officials had not said whether anything was found at the other schools, and no arrest had been announced. Ohio polls close at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Sources: WTOL 11 and 13abc (WTVG), Toledo; Columbus Dispatch live blog, 12:22 p.m. ET, Nov. 3, 2026; USA Today live blog, 1:39 p.m. ET, Nov. 3, 2026 (Toledo Public Schools spokesperson Patty Mazur).
Westchester County, New York: Ballot scanners fail across the county
Scanners at polling places across Westchester County stopped accepting paper ballots on Tuesday morning. Voters still complete their paper ballots, and poll workers place them in orange emergency ballot bags that stay secure and monitored. The county Board of Elections says every eligible vote will be counted. The bagged ballots will be hand-counted by the board after polls close, which may slow the county’s results tonight, including in the 17th District race between Rep. Mike Lawler and Cait Conley.
Update, Nov. 3, 2026 (1:13 p.m. ET): State election officials now say they know the cause. Kathleen McGrath, the New York State Board of Elections’ director of public information, said a change affecting a contest in one municipality was made after the county’s Election Day equipment had been prepared and tested, and the change required an update to the county’s election programming. Scanners still running the original programming could not read Tuesday’s ballots. The state board is working with the county to deliver replacement election media carrying the updated programming, with a priority of at least one working scanner at every polling place. McGrath said the state board had found no similar problems outside Westchester County as of Tuesday afternoon. The county board had earlier pointed to the thickness of the Election Day paper ballots, then withdrew that explanation.
Update, Nov. 3, 2026 (2:23 p.m. ET): Rep. Mike Lawler, whose district includes part of Westchester County, said he expects every ballot cast in the county to be counted. Replacement voting machines that meet federal disability rules are being set up to read the memory sticks from the failed scanners, he said. Ballots cast while the scanners were down are sealed in secure envelopes inside orange emergency bags and will be taken to election headquarters under police escort after polls close at 9 p.m. Lawler called the failure “a screw up” that is being fixed and said there were “no shenanigans.” “I am confident every ballot will be counted,” he said. “I think everybody is justifiably frustrated.” (USA Today, 2:23 p.m. ET.)
County Executive Ken Jenkins said late Tuesday morning that the Board of Elections has not indicated it will need to extend voting hours, even though candidates and campaigns have asked — polls remain set to close at 9 p.m. Jenkins said that once the scanner issues are resolved he will convene a bipartisan team to review what went wrong, saying the county had “fallen short” of the standard voters deserve.
Zark News is covering the Westchester failure in full here: Ballot Scanners Fail Across Westchester County.
Update, Nov. 3, 2026 (3:02 p.m. ET): The New York State Board of Elections said the Westchester County scanner failure was caused by an issue involving a programming update to the machines. Officials are working to get one scanning machine working at every polling place in the county. “Importantly, the affected scanners rejected ballots they could not properly recognize rather than incorrectly tabulating them,” the board said. (USA Today, 3:02 p.m. ET, citing the State Board statement.)
Update, Nov. 3, 2026 (4:46 p.m. ET): County Republican Commissioner Douglas Colety said the problem began with the ballot for the village of Ardsley — the one municipality whose own ballots were not affected — which led to the reprogramming that left scanners elsewhere in the county unable to read ballots. An investigation will decide whether the fault lay with the county Board of Elections or the ballot printer, Fort Orange Press. More than 57,000 ballots could not be scanned right away; they are being held in secure bags and will be counted after polls close at 9 p.m., with the count expected to run into Wednesday. (lohud / The Journal News, Nov. 3, 2026.)
Sources: Westchester County Board of Elections statements, Nov. 3, 2026; lohud / Journal News live blog; News 12 Westchester; ABC7 New York; New York State Board of Elections (Kathleen McGrath), via lohud / Journal News, 1:13 p.m. ET, Nov. 3, 2026.
Chester County, Pennsylvania: Court keeps three polling places open until 8:30 p.m.
A judge has ordered three polling places in Chester County to stay open until 8:30 p.m. ET — half an hour past Pennsylvania’s normal 8 p.m. closing time — after problems setting up voting machines delayed voting on Tuesday morning.
The extension, granted by the Court of Common Pleas, covers precincts 201, 210 and 244, which vote at Easttown Library, St. John’s Presbyterian Church and Goshen Baptist Church. Anyone who votes at those three places after 8 p.m. will cast a provisional ballot. Every other precinct in the county still closes at 8 p.m., and the ballot drop box at Easttown Library also closes at 8 p.m.
Source: USA Today Network Pennsylvania live blog, 12:27 p.m. ET, Nov. 3, 2026, citing county election officials and the court order.
North Carolina: Board extends voting at five sites; no state results before 8:15 p.m.
Update, Nov. 3, 2026: North Carolina’s State Board of Elections voted unanimously on Tuesday to keep five polling places open past the normal 7:30 p.m. closing time because voting there was disrupted. Extensions were granted in four counties — Columbus, Hertford, Lenoir and Wilson. The precinct at the South Williams–Tabor City Courthouse in Columbus County stays open 45 minutes longer, until 8:15 p.m. A Kinston precinct in Lenoir County and a Murfreesboro precinct in Hertford County stay open until 8 p.m., a Como precinct in Hertford County until 7:55 p.m., and one precinct in Wilson County until 7:45 p.m. The board granted no extension in Gates, Watauga or Wilkes counties. Officials blamed laptop and computer problems, printer jams, a late opening and a disruptive voter. Anyone who votes at an extended site after 7:30 p.m. casts a provisional ballot; voters who were in line by 7:30 p.m. vote a regular ballot. Because one site stays open until 8:15 p.m., the board will not post results from anywhere in North Carolina before 8:15 p.m., which delays the first numbers in the Senate race between Democrat Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Whatley. (Wilmington StarNews live blog, Nov. 3, 2026, reporting the State Board’s votes; Fayetteville Observer, 3:15 p.m. ET.)
The board took up the extensions at an emergency meeting at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, after voting was disrupted at sites in seven counties. Under state law, the board can extend voting only for as long as a disruption lasted. (N.C. State Board of Elections meeting notice, Nov. 3, 2026; Public Radio East, 1:43 p.m. ET.)
Fulton County, Georgia: Fake texts tell voters their polling place changed; 1,069 early ballots to be rescanned
Some voters in Fulton County received text messages on Tuesday saying their polling place had changed. The county says it did not send the texts. Voters can check their real polling place at mvp.sos.ga.gov or by calling (404) 612-7020.
Separately, the county has identified exactly 1,069 early-voting ballots — out of more than 328,000 cast in the county — for rescanning after two scanners failed during advance voting, according to a memorandum the county’s Director of Registration and Elections, Nadine Williams, sent to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Nov. 3. At the Hugh C. Conley Recreation Center on Oct. 26, a scanner kept showing a paper-jam error even though there was no jam; it was shut down, with 708 ballots cast on it. At the Mechanicsville Library on Oct. 21, a voter using a wheelchair accidentally rolled over the scanner’s power cable and it shut down; 361 ballots were cast on it before the failure.
Each scanner’s results will be counted from one source only, so no ballot can be counted twice. At Conley, the original memory cards are to be uploaded through another scanner, using the stored results; the paper ballots would be scanned only if that transfer fails. At Mechanicsville, officials were advised not to upload the memory cards because the data might be damaged, so the paper ballots will be scanned once on a central scanner and the original scanner’s data excluded. The Secretary of State’s Voting System Division recommended the plan, which requires approval from the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections at its 6:30 p.m. meeting; the board’s decision had not been published when this update was posted. If approved, the work is done in public view, with poll watchers able to observe inside the tabulation center. Raffensperger said the rescan will not delay the county’s vote count.
Sources: Fulton County memorandum and public statement, Nov. 3, 2026; USA Today live blog, 1:57 p.m. ET, Nov. 3, 2026. Updated 7:47 p.m. ET.
Oklahoma County, Oklahoma: Ballot readers fail at some precincts; locked bins hold the ballots
Ballot-reading machines stopped working at some polling places in Oklahoma County on Tuesday, the county election board secretary, Doug Sanderson, said. One precinct named was Newalla Baptist Church in eastern Oklahoma County. Precincts keep locked bins for paper ballots when a machine is down, and officials will run those ballots through working machines at the end of the day. Technicians are stationed across the county to fix machines during the day. Sanderson said voting never stops and no voter is turned away: “Every vote will be counted, so no one should be concerned.” He did not yet know how many machines had failed. Oklahoma polls close at 7 p.m. local time (8 p.m. ET).
Source: USA Today live blog, 1:43 p.m. ET, Nov. 3, 2026, citing Oklahoma County Election Board Secretary Doug Sanderson.
Oklahoma: Man charged with mailing white powder to election officials
An Oklahoma man faces federal charges after the FBI said he mailed hundreds of letters containing a white powder to public officials ahead of the 2024 and 2026 elections. Robin Patrick Martin is charged with conveying false information and hoaxes and with mailing threatening communications, according to a criminal complaint filed Nov. 1 in federal court in Oklahoma. The FBI said powder tested so far turned out to be yeast or flour, and no injuries had been reported as of Tuesday. (USA Today, 1:50 p.m. ET, Nov. 3, 2026.)
Broward County, Florida: New voting system’s safety feature delays voting for 20 minutes
Voting at polling places across Broward County was delayed for about 20 minutes after polls opened on Tuesday because a safety feature on the county’s new voting system malfunctioned, officials said. Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott apologized to voters who waited and said some left before they could vote; he did not have an estimate of how many. The problem was fixed by 7:20 a.m., and Scott urged voters who left to return. Florida polls close at 7 p.m. ET.
Source: Associated Press, Election Day report, Nov. 3, 2026.
Navajo Nation, Arizona: Closed roads cut access to the Rock Point voting location
The Arizona Secretary of State posted an emergency notice on Tuesday morning warning that the N8014 Bridge in Rock Point is closed and U.S. 191 between Round Rock and Rock Point is also closed, cutting the direct route to the Rock Point voting location for voters on the north, west and south sides of Rock Point. The only remaining route may be a long detour through Rough Rock.
The notice tells voters they do not have to vote at Rock Point: any registered Apache County voter may vote at any Apache County vote center on Election Day. The Secretary of State’s page also lists free rides to the polls in flood-affected Navajo Nation areas from Arizona Native Vote, a community group.
Source: Arizona Secretary of State, Navajo Nation voting page, emergency notice, Nov. 3, 2026.
San Diego County, California: Election office evacuated Monday — resolved
The San Diego County Registrar of Voters office in Kearny Mesa was evacuated for about two and a half hours on Monday afternoon, one day before Election Day, after a suspicious suitcase was found in its lobby.
The item was found at about 1:45 p.m. PT on Monday, Nov. 2. San Diego police evacuated the building at about 3:10 p.m.; nearby streets were closed and the sheriff’s bomb squad checked the item. The office reopened at about 4:45 p.m., staff and voters were allowed back in, and early voting resumed. A county spokesperson said the evacuation was “an abundance of caution after an item left onsite required further evaluation.” Officials have not said what was in the suitcase, and the investigation was described as ongoing.
San Diego County voters can vote at any of the county’s 221 vote centers or use its ballot drop boxes.
Sources: NBC 7 San Diego; New York Post, citing San Diego police.
Flooding moves and power problems
Flooding also forced polling-place changes in Florida and other states, and two Maricopa County, Arizona, vote centers lost power on Monday before reopening. Those voting changes are covered in full in our flooding report: Flooding Moves Polling Places in Florida and Triggers Emergency Voting Rules in Four Other States.
Also on Election Day
Austin, Texas: Someone pulled a fire alarm at a University of Texas at Austin campus polling place on Tuesday, and voting paused for about 10 minutes, campus police said. (University of Texas at Austin police statement, via USA Today live blog, 1:33 p.m. ET.)
Tarrant County, Texas: The county’s own wait-time tracker showed estimated waits of more than two hours at several voting sites around midday on Tuesday; the waits were improving by early afternoon. (USA Today Texas live blog, 12:51 p.m. ET.)
South Carolina: The State Election Commission said the “Find My Polling Place” and “Sample Ballot” features on scVOTES.gov were back to normal after intermittent outages on Tuesday morning. (Greenville News live blog, Nov. 3, 2026.)
Mauldin, South Carolina: A mechanic fixed technical problems on several voting machines at Mauldin Methodist Church; one of the site’s nine machines was taken out of service for the day. (Greenville News live blog, Nov. 3, 2026.)
This roundup was published on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, and will be updated as officials confirm new details.
