Some Riverside County voting sites experience delays due to tech issues
Voting in Riverside County experienced delays when computers used to look up voter registration information became overwhelmed, officials say.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KABC) -- Voting in Riverside County on Saturday experienced delays when computers used to look up voter registration information became overwhelmed, 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."
Federico added some voters may be offered a provisional ballot if the location they were at was experiencing delays.
State Sen. Melissa Melendez tweeted at noon that voting machines in Riverside County stopped working Saturday.
"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," she tweeted.
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.
The county also said it was "aware of some delays" and working to resolve it.
The county later issued a statement saying it identified the problems causing the delays and that it expects all voter assistance centers to process faster, with fewer delays on Sunday.
"Thank you for your patience. Every vote counts and the Registrar of Voters is committed to ensuring every registered voter may cast their ballot," the statement said.
The Riverside County Registrar of Voters on Saturday opened 130 voter assistance centers to cast ballots for the Nov. 3 election. They are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Monday.
On Election Day, the voter assistance centers will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Voters can visit any of the 130 locations as voters are not assigned to a specific voter assistance center. More information is available at VoteInfo.net.
City News Service contributed to this report.
