But in the end, nearly a third of Lancaster County’s electronic ballot scanning machines, or eScans, fumbled during yesterday’s election.

And most of the problems were attributed to human error, said Mary Stehman, chief clerk of the county board of elections.

Before the machines left Burle Industrial Park, where they are stored between elections, a team of election officials and information technicians ran tests on the equipment, using a special chip that doesn’t tally votes.

In dozens of cases, however, the software was never replaced for the election, Stehman said, and the machines were delivered to their polling locations unable to make the ballots count.

In other districts, she said, voters jammed eScans when they didn’t tear off receipts from their ballots and fed a long sheet of paper through the machine.

This was the first time county voters used ballots with detachable stubs.

The board of elections did not have time to attach the receipts during the primary rush, when the electronic machines made their debut.

Election officials said problems occurred in about 70 of the 232 eScan machines used in Tuesday’s voting.

Problems began as soon as the polls opened at 7 a.m.

Sue Ellen Hendricks, judge of elections at Moravian Manor in Lititz Borough, discovered the malfunction after her very first voter. Because of the volume of complaints, she was unable to reach anyone from the county until almost an hour later.

Hendricks’ eScan machine was programmed to run on test mode. With only six technicians traveling from one troubled district to another, her location wasn’t serviced until 6:30 p.m.

Stehman promised that these and other problems will be ironed out next week when her staff convenes for an election day assessment meeting.

“We’ve identified some areas that need some checks and balances,” Stehman said today, but declined to name specific complaints.

County Commissioner Pete Shaub said he is confident Stehman will find a way to improve the process, just as she did after the primaries when it took election judges up to an hour and a half to deliver the ballots to the election office. This year, it took under 20 minutes, he said.

“When I give Mary her time, and the team, they work out the bugs and get it corrected,” Shaub said.

Lancaster County did not suffer alone on Tuesday. Similar problems faced voters in Lebanon County, where polls remained open until 9 p.m. as they did here. Election officials in both counties worked until 2 a.m. this morning.

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