Riverside County

Tech Issues Cause Delays at Some Riverside County Voting Locations

Some voters were being offered provisional ballots if the polling location they were at was experiencing delays.

A voter walks towards a booth to fill out her ballot during the in-person early voting at a polling station in Lincoln Center in New York, the United States, Oct. 24, 2020. Early voting began across New York State on Saturday, offering voters nine days to cast their ballots prior to Election Day.
Wang Ying/Getty Images

Confusion and delays plagued early voting in Riverside County Saturday when computers used to look up voter registration information were overwhelmed, increasing wait time at the polls, officials said.

"Some of the voter assistance centers are experiencing intermittent delays in processing voters due to significant volume in the voter registration lookup system," said Brooke Federico, a public information officer for Riverside County. "The county team is working diligently to ensure that all sites are processing voters as quickly as possible."

She said some voters were being offered provisional ballots if the polling location they were at was experiencing delays.

In a tweet sent around noon, state Sen. Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, said, "Voting machines in Riverside County are down. We are working on finding out what the problem is and when the registrar will have this fixed. This is completely unacceptable."

But Federico said that was not true and that there were no reported delays with ballot marking machines, which are not connected to the internet and only mark ballots that are printed and then cast in a ballot box.

Still, some voters took to social media to complain about the delays and hours-long lines at voting centers.

"Voters at all locations are asked to be patient," Federico said.

The county on Saturday opened 130 voter assistance centers, which will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Monday.

On Election Day, the voting centers will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Voters are not assigned to a specific voter assistance center and may visit any of the 130 locations.

Copyright CNS - City News Service
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