EBENSBURG, Pennsylvania — Election Day polling problems caused chaos and massive delays in one county and smaller issues in two others in the critical swing state of Pennsyvlania.

All three counties went for former President Donald Trump in 2020.

Propblems with paper ballots in in Cambria County meant they could not be scanned by voting machines. As a result, polling places have seen chaos and longs lines, threatening to disenfranchise voters in the critical swing state, a local election official said Tuesday.

As a result, polls were ordered open for another two hours — until 10 p.m. 

In Luzerne County, the home of Wilkes-Barre, a polling site failed to open for 90 minutes on Tuesday morning because of an issue with poll workers. A judge ordered that district to stay open until 9:30 p.m.

The issues mean election results in the counties could be delayed — at a time when margins in Pennsylvania are razar-thin, with many pundits predicting that the Keystone State could determine the outcome of the presidential election. 

Election officials, however, have reassured voters that the problemss would prevent any ballots from being counted.

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Around 7 a.m. local time, election officials received reports that election machines weren’t properly scanning the ballots, Commissioner Keith Rager told The Post. 

“Initially, we had thought that it was a software issue, and we were attempting to correct. Upon further investigation, we found that there was an issue with the ballots not being able to be scanned into the system,” Alex Ashcom, Cambria County’s chief clerk, recounted to The Post.

Rager identified William Penn Printing as the company that sent the bungled ballots, and explained that the county raced to get a “good” batch of new ballots. The county recieved those new ballots around noon and began distributing them about an hour hour afterwards.  

In total, the county acquired roughly 35,000 new ballots. 

“In response to this, we issued directives to all of the other polling precincts to still take ballots, still keep people voting, and to collect them and count them by hand, rather than by using the machine as a backup,” Alex Ashcom, Cambria County’s chief clerk explained to The Post.

Trump won the county with 68% of the vote against President Biden in 2020. 

Nathan Anderson, an IT specialist from Johnstown, Cambria’s largest city, said he ran into issues at his voting site when he cast his ballot for Trump this morning. 

He said a poll worker put his ballot in a lock box until it could be scanned, but Anderson admitted he had reservations about the issue. 

“I was able to turn in my ballot, whether or not it gets scanned, I’ll never know to be honest,” he said.

Anderson added that others were also leaving their ballots with poll workers to be scanned later rather than coming back once the machines are fixed. 

The judge who ordered election hours to be extended over the snagu noted that any ballot cast after the standard 8 p.m. deadline would be provisional. 

Both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris previously campaigned in Johnstown. Cambria County, which is about 65 miles east of Pittsburgh, has a population of 131,000.

In Luzerne County, one of two eastern Pennsylvania counties where Republicans overtook Democrats in active voter registration earlier this year, poll workers failed to set up shop on time.

Polls were supposed to open at 7 a.m., but in Luzerne County, wokers at a precinct in Laflin Borough were unable to access a scanner due to an issue with the lock. By about 8:40 a.m., several machines were up and running. 

But the delay prompted a request from both Luzerne County Democratic Party and the Pennsylvania Republican Party for a time extension to compensate for the debacle.  

The county is no stranger to election controversy. Two years ago, the county ran low on paper ballots. It had previously been considered a blue county, but Trump managed to win it in both 2016 and 2020. 

Luzerne County has a population of about 327,000.

Further south in Bedford County, poll workers had trouble opening their tabulator machines, with some failing to open with their security keys, according to officials there. 

“Support team members visited the five precincts and resolved each issue, which allowed the activation process to run as expected,” Jeffrey Gable, director of elections in Bedford County, said.

“The opportunity for voters to cast a ballot was not affected. Following existing protocol, voters were instructed to place their voted ballots in the Secure Storage Bin on the tabulator, which is a security measure put in place for a scenario such as this.”

Gable also underscored that the issue “was not software-related” and “unrelated to any issues experienced by other Pennsylvania counties.”

Bedford, located next door to Cambria County, has about 47,000 residents and went overwhelming for Trump in 2020.

Pennsylvania has the most electoral college votes of any swing state in the 2024 election. Given that Trump, 78, lost the Keystone State by just over one percentage point in 2020 and that polls have pegged the state as a statistical tossup, the outages have sparked serious concerns for Republicans. 

The election administration issues in Cambria, Luzerne and Bedford counties come as the country is on edge over the election. Four years ago, Trump peddled unsubstantiated claims about widespread voter fraud. Ahead of this election cycle, he has warned of potential maleficence. 

Trump’s allies have been carefully on the lookout for any irregularities and geared up to potentially file a slew of lawsuits. The issues in Cambria and Bedford could give fodder for potential suits. 

“This will be the most important day in American History. Voter enthusiasm is THROUGH THE ROOF because people want to Make America Great Again. That means lines are going to be long! I need you to deliver your vote no matter how long it takes. STAY IN LINE! The Radical Communist Democrats want you to pack up and go home,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.

Local voter Jessie Anderson said she was shocked by the voting issue but relieved that she chose to cast her ballot early on Oct. 29, anticipating possible Election Day issues.

“I’ve never voted early; voted by mail. But Trump kept putting it out there. Make it too big to rig,” she echoed the former president.

Trump has a 0.6 percentage point edge over Harris in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of multi-candidate polling. The 45th president had flipped the state in 2016 but lost it in 2020.