With early voting getting underway for the presidential election, many Florida counties’ elections websites were down Monday morning and continued, for at least some, after noon.
People going to several counties’ supervisor of elections websites got the same page, apparently run by the vendor who handles websites for most Florida supervisors of elections offices. Those included the elections websites for Broward County and Palm Beach County.
“Florida Supervisors of Elections,” a webpage stated at the top. “The website is under heavy load at this time.”
If some users waited long enough, 20 to 30 minutes in one case, the county elections office webpages would open. Others continued to get the generic page.
“We recognize the importance of having a fully functional website during these critical times for Broward voters. We are doing everything possible to minimize any disruption of services,” Broward Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott said in a statement.
Broward is replacing the vendor most supervisors of elections offices use to run their websites.
Alison Novoa, director of strategic initiatives at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office, said she would contact the vendor.
The Monday morning problem is reminiscent of what happened on the night of the Aug. 20 primary. So many people went online to try to see the results of primary and nonpartisan elections that the vendor, VR Services, a Florida-based company, said it wasn’t able to handle all the traffic.
The public relations representative who issued a statement on behalf of VR Services in the aftermath of the primary issue didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Tabulation of results wasn’t affected, and legally required results were transmitted on time by county elections offices to the Secretary of State’s Office. But it left many people frustrated, prompted angry responses from some supervisors of elections, and even fueled some conspiracy theorists’ belief that election results were being manipulated during the outage. There was no evidence for such claims, which supervisors of elections said weren’t true.
At a news conference on the night of the primary, Secretary of State Cord Byrd, an appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis, offered this explanation of the issue with the county websites not being able to show results.
“It’s a vendor issue, and we’ll be able to get to the bottom of it,” he said.
Byrd’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Scott, who has a background in computer science and technology, was so dissatisfied with VR Services that he began a transition to a different website provider, something he hoped to have in place for the presidential election.
On Monday, Scott said that would happen imminently.
“We have engaged with a new vendor and will be launching a new website, accessible at the same address, www.browardvotes.gov, as early as today,” Scott said.
People who get the generic “Florida Supervisors of Elections” website can use a dropdown menu to select their county. They’ll be redirected to a limited version of the desired county supervisor’s office website. From there, if someone goes to check their voter status and inputs name and birthdate, it will go to a page with a link that allows a person to see early voting locations.
Early voting began at 7 a.m. Monday in both counties. It runs daily until 7 p.m. through Sunday, Nov. 2, two days before Election Day.
In the meantime, people can check by phone to see if they’re registered to vote, request mail ballots and check their status, and find locations of early voting centers and Election Day polling places. Broward and Palm Beach county elections offices also post information on their social media pages.
©2024 South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Several County Elections Websites Struggle as Early Voting Begins
Broward County and Palm Beach County's elections websites were temporarily down earlier this week as early voting for the upcoming presidential election commenced within the state.
