Updated on 03/15 at 2:00 p.m.
Voters headed to the polls in Jacksonville today may experience a delay after elections officials scrapped an electronic registration verification and reverted to a paper printout of all Duval County voters.
All 199 precincts had to revert to a paper print-out of Duval County voters to check registration. By noon, 94 precincts had their Electronic Voter ID Equipment, or EVID machines, back up and running.
According to Supervisor of Elections Mike Hogan a small software error affected many of the registration machines. The new technology, which allows poll workers to swipe a voter's driver's license to check their registration, was introduced in 2014.
"Voting has gone on as planned. Nobody has been turned away," Hogan said.
During the glitch, the poll workers reverted to the old paper method of verification.
"We had a back-up plan for everything," Hogan said. "This one is not that critical because it has nothing to do with vote tabulation. In fact, most of the voters, if they didn't vote in 2014 or 2015, have never even seen any of it."
Hogan reports that 30 technicians were sent out to repair the machines. It is a quick fix, according to Hogan, but because there are 199 sites with four to eight machines at each site, it took several hours before the machines were back in use.
Hogan said each machine was also tested by the technicians to make sure that it was working again before it was put back into use.
"We were testing it before we went live this morning when we discovered the problem," Hogan said.
He said a worker at each precinct will manually enter the voters into the machine who had come into vote while the technology was down. He said around 2 p.m. his office would have an idea of how many voters have visited the polls so far on Tuesday.
Despite the glitch most voters said they had no problems and were able to get in and out of their precincts in only a few minutes.
"I came in. They had friendly smiles.They found where I was supposed to go, and it took like 60 seconds," voter Roger Pancoast said.
"It went so smooth, the only trouble I had was deciding who I was going to vote for," Joe Tomlinson said.
The supervisors of elections in St. Johns and Clay counties said they also use the EVID systems and had no issues with the machines in their counties Tuesday.
"There's nothing we can describe as to what may have caused this. We haven't had any problems with the EVIDs in the past," Hogan said. "But we were prepared, and paper works just as good as electronics, it's just a little bit slower."
A few voters in Duval County had trouble because they showed up at the wrong precinct. Election officials remind voters to double-check their current precinct before heading out to vote.
Original Story
Voters headed to the polls in Jacksonville this morning may experience a delay after elections officials scrapped an electronic registration verification and reverted to a paper printout of all Duval County voters.
According to the Supervisor of Elections, Mike Hogan, a small software error affected many of the registration machines. As a result, poll workers must check voter identification against a paper print-out of Duval County voters.
The new technology was introduced in 2014, so the workers are are reverting to the old, paper method of verification until the machines are fixed.
"We had a backup plan for everything," Hogan said. "This one is not that critical because it has nothing to do with vote tabulation. In fact, most of the voters, if they didn't vote in 2014 or 2015, have never even seen any of it."
Hogan reports that 30 technicians were sent out to repair the machines. It is a quick fix, according to Hogan, but because there are 199 sites, it could be up to 2-3 hours before the machines are back in use.
This article will be updated as more information becomes available.