Times Union: "According to documents Greenhalgh obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request and shared with the Times Union, Clear Ballot told the county Board of Elections that miscounts could have been prevented if results were “verified properly during the logic and accuracy testing of the voting system.””
Three groups claim elections board failed to properly investigate miscounts in Stephentown, East Greenbush, a countywide state ballot item
By Tyler A. McNeil,Staff WriterMarch 11, 2026
Rensselaer County Republican Elections Commissioner Henry Zwack told tabulation vendor Clear Ballot on Nov. 12 that there was a “problem” scanning ballots from the Stephentown Memorial Library contest, according to public records obtained by a senior advisor on election security for the advocacy group Free Speech For People.
Tyler A. McNeil/Times Union
ALBANY — A trio of government advocacy groups wants the state attorney general’s office to investigate since-corrected ballot miscounts in Rensselaer County.In a letter to the attorney general’s office sent Monday, Common Cause New York, the Rensselaer County League of Women Voters and Free Speech For People scrutinized the county Board of Elections, which initially stood by the dramatically inaccurate 528-60 results of a Stephentown Memorial Library budget vote in November.
A countywide recount revealed formatting errors — ovals improperly juxtaposed over text — that showed the proposition actually passed 540-279. Totals for a proposal to end an East Greenbush volunteer ambulance service program shifted from a 517-505 approval to a 2,381 to 2,250 defeat. And the approval of a state ballot proposition shifted by a few hundred votes countywide.
Susan Greenhalgh, a senior advisor on election security for Free Speech For People who signed on to the letter, believes that such a flub requires a perfect storm of procedural problems.
“All of those things are things that we need to understand where an investigation by the attorney general could be incredibly helpful, so better practices could be recommended and implemented going forward, because there are a whole bunch of things that had to go wrong for this to happen,” Greenhalgh said.
According to the county Board of Elections, the situation was caused by staff making a change to the ballot layout, which resulted in a formatting error that was never tested again. He said that the board is focused on making improvements through additional training and an expanded review of ballot testing to avoid a similar situation in the future.
“I don’t know what more to say than what we’ve already consistently, clearly, openly and unequivocally said,” Republican Elections Commissioner Henry Zwack told the Times Union. “There’s no mystery here. We disclosed that it was a formatting error and referendums did not affect the public offices.”
Further fueling the complainants' skepticism are emails and document exchanges between Zwack, other election board staffers and Clear Ballot, a county-contracted election tabulation vendor, that Greenhalgh obtained through an open records request on Jan. 13.
Those documents, which were shared with the Times Union, show that Zwack had reached out to the vendor on Nov. 12 to correct a “problem” scanning the library vote. Clear Ballot said that the totals were updated after a recanvass and audit, and that the Stephentown library proposal was the only proposition affected by formatting errors.
The recent letter to the attorney general’s office blasted the election board for accepting “inconsistent and inaccurate” findings. “Moreover, despite the inconsistent and inaccurate conclusions, the RCBOE did not appear to probe or question these inconsistencies,” the letter read.
Zwack explained that Clear Ballot’s assessment of the situation was based on information known at the time. Problems in East Greenbush, according to him, were later identified.
Zwack and Deputy Election Commissioner Kim Nielsen insisted that all voting machines successfully passed logic and accuracy testing in a letter to the Stephentown Public Library on Nov. 10.
The letter to the attorney general’s office described the difference between the two explanations as troubling. According to Zwack, the difference was based on learning afterward that the machines were not correctly tested.
“We had logic and accuracy testing reports that showed everything was done,” Zwack said. “Then, when we sat down with it, we determined that actually the staff dropped the ball.”
Clear Ballot spokesperson Carolyn Weingold deferred comment to the Rensselaer County Board of Elections.
The Times Union confirmed that Attorney General Letitia James is reviewing the letter.
March 11, 2026
Tyler A. McNeil
STAFF WRITER
Tyler A. McNeil is a Saratoga County native who covers Rensselaer County, northeast Albany County and Waterford. He previously worked as a politics and data reporter with The Daily Gazette. You can reach him at TylerA.McNeil@TimesUnion.com.