Multiple election websites face technical issues shortly after polls close

Reporter: Asha Patel Writer: Nicholas Karsen
Published: Updated:
elections
Credit: WINK News

Multiple Florida counties were experiencing technical issues with their elections page websites on Primary Day on Tuesday.

Candidates patiently waited to witness the election results; however, they were met with delays shortly after the polls closed at 7 p.m.

Lee and Charlotte Counties were not exempt from the technical delays, prompting questions regarding why this issue occurred.

WINK News spoke with Tommy Doyle, the Lee County Supervisor of Elections, about the issues with the county’s website and how they were resolved.

Doyle stated that their website was affected for a few minutes before it continued operating. He followed up by saying he is working with the website developers to ensure this issue does not arise in November.

The Florida Department of State released a statement regarding the technical delays at around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday:

“We are aware that some counties are having issues with their websites communicating with VR Systems. We offered our support to help supervisors with the issues with their vendors. This is not an issue with the Florida Department of the State systems. This in no way impacts Floridaelectionwatch.gov. All the information and vote tallies were timely reported to the Department of the State, and we have that information.”

Doyles shared with WINK News the response he was issued from the company responsible—VR Systems:

“We believe the logging that was enabled as a security measure was at the root of the issue that our customers experienced. This log records the action on the content management system serving our customers’ websites. Late in the day, it began to grow exponentially due to the increase in traffic to the websites. We believe this put extraordinary stress on the system.”

While Lee County resolved their issue on Tuesday, others were not so lucky.

Charlotte County was unable to resolve the issue until Wednesday.

WINK News spoke with Leah Valenti, the Charlotte County Supervisor of Elections, who stated that they will work to ensure that the issue does not happen again in November.

“It caused a statewide issue. They have assured us that they will be fully remedied and not an issue with the November election, and they have reached out to each of the supervisors to ensure this will not be an issue.”

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