On Saturday, the first day that voters in Michigan may enter their votes into tabulators at polling places throughout the state for the primary on August 6, early voting was momentarily interrupted by a technical malfunction.
A “server issue” impacted the functionality of electronic pollbooks on Saturday morning, according to Angela Benander, a spokesperson for the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office. Electronic pollbooks track voters and votes in certain jurisdictions.
“The Bureau of Elections and clerks are always prepared in case of possible connectivity or technology problems during early voting, and the early voting process is designed to allow voting to continue using a secure offline backup procedure if technology is temporarily unavailable,” Benander stated. “The backup process worked.”Voters have the opportunity to cast their ballots, and every voter and ballot will be counted and recorded.
The problem caused Canton municipality clerk Michael Siegrist to say that until the technology started working regularly at 11 a.m., his municipality tracked votes on paper.
By 1 p.m., the issue had been fixed throughout the state. A request for comment from Detroit’s director of elections, Daniel Baxter, was not immediately answered. The Detroit News was informed by Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey that the problem “didn’t stop us at the Detroit Department of Elections.” We know what to do because we have been doing this for so long.”
The first of nine days of early in-person voting took place on Saturday. Numerous residents of Detroit attended a block party arranged by the city outside the Detroit Department of Elections. Employees there provided free food and entertainment on West Grand Boulevard in an effort to get residents of the neighborhood to enter the facility and cast early ballots.
According to Winfrey, the block party was the first of many that would be held for neighbors at other Detroit early voting locations. Although Vickie McClain had previously voted absentee, she expressed excitement that there was still time for her acquaintances to register to vote.
According to her, the 60-year-old Detroit native, who lives nearby, intends to man the polls during the primary. McClain stated that she is urging everyone in her life to cast a ballot as soon as possible and that she was particularly worried about selecting a candidate who will increase the minimum wage. Due to the high cost of living and lack of possibilities for well-paying professions, many people in Detroit—including her daughter—are struggling, she added. McClain said of her daughter, “She got to maintain her whole household on $12 an hour, which – she falls short.” 52-year-old Diallo Daniely declared that he would vote soon and would encourage as many people as possible to do the same.
“Our survival depends on it,” Detroit native Daniely stated. In other Detroit locations, such as the Northwest Activities Center and Palmer Park Community Center, where residents seemed sparse, early voters were more difficult to come by. By 1 p.m. on Saturday, only 31 people had visited the Royal Oak Senior Community Center, which was less than some poll workers had anticipated, according to Tricia Graziano, chairperson of the Royal Oak elections board, who spoke with the News. Staff members at the Royal Oak polling place were compelled to assist voters in casting their ballots by hand due to a computer system breakdown, according to Graziano.
Her words, “Our computers were just spinning,” “They weren’t letting anything come up and then the voters weren’t coming up.” Before printing ballots for voters to complete, Graziano and other site employees had to visit City Hall to make sure the citizens were registered to vote and did not already have an absentee ballot, according to her.
According to her, ballots were manually input into the computer system by site officials after voters had cast their ballots. No one was considerably slowed down by the procedure, but the problem presented an unforeseen wrinkle to the first day of early voting, according to her. In February, while over 78,000 Michigan citizens cast early ballots for the presidential primary, Graziano was working at the same location.
Regarding early voting, Graziano remarked, “Everyone that comes here always says what a good idea it is.” “Like, nobody has voiced any complaints. When the system failed, they made no complaints at all. In order to beat the crowd on August 6, Michelle Hunt, 57, of Royal Oak, said she cast her ballot at the Royal Oak Senior Community Center on Saturday.
Hunt stated that she was mostly worried about this primary’s presidential election. “I encourage everyone to vote early, because I think if you get it done and over with, you know, at least you’re not pressed when the time comes to come in and try to vote or stand in line and things like that,” she stated.
