JOHNSTOWN - A court order that prevented votes from being counted in five Fulton County towns has been lifted, but election officials said it may be some time before they know who won elections in Northampton and Broadalbin.

Deputy Democratic Election Commissioner Linda Coons said the order, which prohibited votes in municipalities within the 23rd Congressional District from being counted by hand, was lifted Wednesday. Voting machine software in Bleecker, Broadalbin, Northampton and Oppenheim crashed during the day, and electronic voting totals were not available, so the prohibition against manual vote counting prevented results from being known.

Coons said she will schedule a time for Dominion voting machine company officials to rescan the uncounted ballots so they do not need to be hand-counted. But she said it is unclear when that might happen.

That means everyone might still need to wait to hear results from three contested elections in Broadalbin and Northampton. Broadalbin Town Councilman Joe DiGiacomo and George Walters, who are running against each other for the town supervisor position, still don't know which one of them will take over from retiring Supervisor Lee Hollenbeck.

"I'm frustrated, I guess," DiGiacomo said. "But all I can do is wait. The votes are in. Hopefully, they get counted accurately. That's the other concern, I guess, but at least they're on paper now."

Walters said he remains confident.

"I'm going to win anyway," he said. "It's just a matter of when they count."

Meanwhile, votes also have not been tallied in Northampton, where Supervisor Linda Kemper is trying to hold off a challenge from Northville Mayor James Groff.

Town Councilman Guy Poulin is also on the ballot, but has asked his supporters to vote for Kemper.

Kemper said she had major problems with the new optical-scanning voting machines that replaced lever-style machines throughout the county this year. She said she feels the machines were not properly checked before the election, and said many people told her they would never vote again because of frustrating experiences they had at the polls.

She said she is anxiously awaiting the results.

"You just want to know so you can move on and get your work done," Kemper said. "And now how long are we going to wait? This is a more than full-time position for me."

Groff said he was surprised the votes had not yet been counted, but he said a new system often invites glitches.

"[I've] just got to sit back and wait," Groff said. "There's not much you can do. It's not anybody's fault."

Republicans Darryl Roosa and Robert Ellsworth and Conservative Amanda Frasier Skotarczak, who are running for two vacant council spots in Northampton, are also waiting to hear results.

Zach Subar can be reached at ruralnews@leaderherald.com.