The Champaign County voting system is unable to verify voters, according to polling workers at various locations.
Polls opened throughout Champaign County at 6 a.m., including at the University, but the polling system that checks registration, prints ballots and counts votes has been down countywide and in Sangamon County, according to Election Protection volunteer Christina Nordhom.
County Clerk Aaron Ammons has requested the State Attorney extend voting hours to make up for the time the systems were nonfunctioning.
After waking up at 5 a.m., Zainab Mem, sophomore in Engineering, who was near the front of the line to vote, only had one word when asked for a comment: “Tired.”
Sui Ashmagumalli, graduate student studying computer science, had been in line since 5:50 a.m. and remained in the same spot until polls were back up.
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“I thought it’d be a quick thing,” Ashmagumalli said. “Like, go in and out, and go to class.”
Polling station workers are currently implementing a manual process to try and register voters with mixed success.
“They found a workaround,” Nordhom said.
According to Nordhom, in the few minutes before the shutdown, lines were already moving slow because unregistered voters had to register. As of 7:36 a.m., only seven voters made it through the line despite the Illini Union opening at 6 a.m.
“There are more than 300 people in line here at the Illini Union, and I can presume that there are long lines in all the other voting locations,” Nordhom said.
UPDATE: Nov. 5, 8:03 a.m.
“It’s back up and running,” Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons said. “We’ve been able to pull up voters.”
