Times Union: "Paramount to our democracy is a ballot system that works and can be trusted by voters. That’s why the problems with Rensselaer County’s November election ballots are deeply troubling….The commissioners' initial reluctance to acknowledge that a technological failure might have occurred gives us pause."
OPINION
Editorial: Rensselaer County ballot errors shake confidence in voting system
A manual recount corrected the record, but the initial failures show why election safeguards can’t wait
By Times Union Editorial Board,OpinionDec 30, 2025
Ballot results in Rensselaer County's general election were called into question, and then proven to be inaccurate.John Nordell/Getty Images
Paramount to our democracy is a ballot system that works and can be trusted by voters. That’s why the problems with Rensselaer County’s November election ballots are deeply troubling.The county’s Board of Elections did the right thing by conducting a manual recount of thousands of ballots, a redo that overturned the results of two ballot proposals. But the fact remains: The machine tallies proved unreliable.
As reported by the Times Union's Tyler A. McNeil, discrepancies surfaced after the Stephentown Memorial Library challenged the initial results, which had shown its budget proposal being defeated by 89% of voters, 528-60. The proposition asked voters to approve a $15,000 increase in the town's annual contribution to the library’s operating budget, bringing the town’s share to $110,000. The increase raises property taxes by less than $10 for homes assessed at about $200,000.
Initially, Republican Elections Commissioner Henry Zwack and Democratic Deputy Commissioner Kim Nielsen stood by the machine tally.
But as the library collected statements from voters attesting that they had supported the increase, the board learned that one of the county’s machines had failed to record votes for a period of time. Further investigation revealed that a state referendum printed on the backs of ballots might also have been affected, because ovals were misaligned over text. The library budget question also appeared on the backs of ballots, where all propositions were listed.
That discovery prompted the elections board to manually recount all 40,000 ballots.
The recount found that the library budget had, in actuality, passed 540-279.
But the errors didn't end there: The totals in two other races shifted as well. A proposal to end East Greenbush’s W.F. Bruen Rescue Squad volunteer service program changed from a 517-505 passage to a 2,381-2,250 defeat. And a proposition to develop state forest land in North Elba, while unchanged in being approved, went from a 22,800-14,374 vote to a tally of 23,182-14,643.
The commissioners' initial reluctance to acknowledge that a technological failure might have occurred gives us pause. This comes as counties consider adopting newer “bar code” voting machines that use touch screens — technology whose security, accuracy and legality have been questioned by advocates and lawmakers.
We understand the appeal of a more digital process, but that process must include robust safeguards to ensure vote counts are verifiable and accurate. Mr. Zwack says that, going forward, new pre-election testing procedures should catch formatting issues before ballots are printed.
That level of diligence can’t come soon enough to protect the public’s faith in our democratic system.
Letter to the editor by Chris Bystroff:
Kudos to George Hearst and the TU editorial board for their opinion piece ("Rensselaer County ballot errors shake confidence in voting system", Dec 30, 2025) which highlights an underreported and disturbing election system failure, and corrects the focus.
It is not a time to praise the Board of Elections for catching an error and correcting it with a "Mt Everest challenge" county-wide recount, as it was reported by News 10 (Nov 20, 2025).
The error was not caught by the Board of Elections. It was caught by vigilant citizens of Stephentown, who made calls and collected statements proving the count was wrong.
What happened with the post-election audit, which took place on Nov 17? I was there! Auditors (who, by the way, are the same commissioners and election workers who carried out the original canvass) are supposed to hand-count a 3% sampling of the vote that includes all of the different ballot styles in the County.
The hand-count numbers must match the machine count. Clearly they did not follow that rule, because the Stephentown ballot style was different and should have been included in the audit, and if it had been included it would have been obvious that the numbers did not match the electronic count.
And yet, the Board of Election certified the audit as having no descrepancies. Now is not the time to take Commissioner Henry Zwack's word for it that it was a "ballot formatting error" and they will be "changing things going forward.”
It is not the first time the Rensselaer County Board of Elections has skirted the rules regarding post-elections audits. Unprofessional and suspicious activity is detailed in my lawsuit (Bystroff vs. New York State Board of Elections. https://unicourt.com/case/ny-sup1-casegc275e688a292b-3124192) of earlier this year (last year if you are reading this more than two days from now). Suffice it to say, no one is watching them and they know it.
It is time to demand an investigation so that the root causes of miscounted elections are discovered and corrected, so that a voter-led "lucky catch" is not the only mechanism we have to assure election integrity, moving forward.