Fort Bend County election officials have yet to decide whether to extend voting hours today as they scramble to fix problems with the electronic polling list at each voting location.
The problems, discovered as soon as polling places opened this morning, prevented poll workers from being able to pull information from their laptop computers to verify if voters who had voted during the March 2 primaries were attempting to vote in a runoff of the same political party.
Election administrator John Oldham said that his office had taken thousands of phone calls by 3 p.m. and expected more calls before the problems are completely fixed.
A San Diego, Calif.-based voter registration software vendor found a clue to the problem and provided a fix at about 12:30 p.m., which was tested by the county election office, Oldham said.
At 1:30 p.m., Oldham sent nine staff members out to polling places to install the correct polling list to the laptops.
Oldham said that while he is unsure when all 71 polling places will be fixed, he advised his staff members to target larger ones that have more voters first.
Sugar Land political consultant Chris Elam said there were widespread concerns about the problem.
“They had to call the county for every single voter to verify their eligibility to vote,” he said. “We’ve got lots of evidence that people were being driven away by long lines because it literally took two or three minutes per voter to get them through the system. A lot of people had to leave this morning because they had to go to work.”
Oldham said party leaders and candidates have not been in agreement whether voting hours should be stretched as a result of the technical glitch.
“They have to petition it and (have it) approved by a court order,” Oldham said. “I’d have no problem either way.”
Oldham stressed that voting machines are working fine. Nor has any other voting issue been reported.
“The problem was only with the electronic polling list,” he said. “I haven’t seen a single incidence where a voter who has voted in the primary attempts to vote in a runoff of a different party today.”
Source:http://www.ultimatefortbend.com/2010/04/problem-plagues-fort-bend-polling-places
