Voting machine malfunctions reported at several Duval County precincts
August 28, 2018
As Election Day wears on, several reports of ballot problems have emerged from polling locations across Duval County.
Florida Politics reported ballot issues at Precinct 606 and Precinct 510 in Jacksonville. Voting machines have reportedly rejected ballots at these two polling locations, and the votes will have to be manually counted.
The Jacksonville chapter of the Women’s March also tweeted that voting machines at Precinct 202, located at Faith Bridge Church in Jacksonville, were down for over 2 hours.
According to a tweet from Lisa King, Chair of the Duval County Democratic Party, the ballot issues seem to be affecting random voters, regardless of party affiliation or precinct location.
https://twitter.com/kingforJAX/status/1034495778985791488
King also stated that unscanned ballots will be put into special bags and driven to the Supervisor of Elections to be scanned. According to King, the Supervisor of Elections believes their machines have more “play” and will be able to successfully scan the unscanned ballots.
Regardless, the amount of unscanned ballots is currently unknown, which could lead to a long night for those waiting for Florida primary election results.
Duval County Supervisor of Elections Mike Hogan told First Coast News that some ballots are wider than the slots in the voting machines, causing the ballots to be rejected.
According to Hogan, test ballots worked on the machines, but the voting day ballots are not. The reason for this is unknown. Voters who have had problems can either resubmit a new ballot or put their rejected ballots into specific bins that will be counted later on Tuesday night.
Spinnaker has reached out to Hogan but received no comment at the time of publication. This story will continue to be updated as more information becomes available.
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Susanne F Barker • Aug 29, 2018 at 11:57 am
I worked in at the Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Jacksonville Beach, Precinct 1302, and our Evid machines were down for 2 hours yesterday. The machines did not have the chips in them to communicate with SOE. It was interesting that we didn’t get a call from them asking us if we were online. Obviously they should have been worried from 7am that they weren’t getting any information from us.
This isn’t right! I’ve worked the elections for over 8 years and this has never happened before. Is there a reason Hogan doesn’t want our voting system to work? This should be investigated thoroughly.
Please call me if you need more information. 904-463-2067