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Notes -
In later reporting the issue was explained to be "a leaky toilet spilling water into a room with ballots early on Election Day", which did delay absentee ballot counting for a couple hours while the leak was fixed (on video, reportedly) late that night.
For this one the story is that "observers and media were not asked to leave. They simply left on their own when they saw one group of workers, whose job was only to open envelopes and who had completed that task, also leave" ... and ironically this more than a leaky urinal is what brings the phrase "don't piss on me and tell me it's raining" to mind. On the other hand, people misinterpreting "there's a water leak and we're going home" as "there's a water leak so we all have to go home" doesn't sound implausible. And in this case there don't seem to be recordings either way? Is "media" an inaccurate descriptor, just an aspirational long-term goal? Was there some rule against observers recording what they observe? Was all that stuff about how pocket-sized portable solid-state internet-connected A/V recorders were invented a decade ago and are now routinely carried by the vast majority of the population just a weird dream I had?
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