Fayette Co. district attorney confirms search warrant to be executed at board of elections

UNIONTOWN — In Fayette County, voters casting ballots in the Republican primary were informed voting machines were not accepting their ballots due to an issue with barcodes located on their ballot.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Fayette County Board of Election delivered new ballots with barcodes, so precincts could scan and count ballots being cast following the barcode issue.

“The scanning machine was not scanning. At first, we thought it was all ballots, but then realized it was only Republican ballots,” said Chris Varney, Fayette County Judge of Elections.

According to Varney, poll workers began noticing scanning programs shortly after their precinct opened.

“Just to make it fair, because if someone has a ballot and they miss mark it, you know the Republicans wouldn’t have a chance to correct it, but the Democrats do. So, now we’re not scanning any of them. We’re just putting them in the back,” said Varney.

“It does seem to be an issue with how the barcodes were printed,” said St. Rep. Matt Dowling, R – Fayette County.

Dowling told Channel 11, the board of elections informed his office, the barcode issue was impacting both Republican and Democratic voters.

Because of the issue, the Fayette County Republican Party filed an emergency petition for a judge to order all ballots not to be scanned, and instead, have the Judge of Elections and poll workers tally the ballots at the end of the day.

Dowling tells Channel 11 he is satisfied with the decision.

“I think that it is the best outcome we can have, but – moving forward, we have to investigate how an error like this takes place,” said Dowling.

Channel 11 recently learned that the Fayette County district attorney confirmed they requested a search warrant to be executed at the board of elections.

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