DALLAS (1080 KRLD)- Dallas County Elections says it has been working with a vendor to fix issues that slowed down lines on the first day of early voting. Dallas County says 56,074 people voted Monday, representing 4.7% of all registered voters.
Some voters say they spent more than two hours waiting to cast ballots. Dallas County Elections says the issue was not connected to any voting devices but affected electronic poll book systems.
The county says workers found some poll books had blank screens or showed error messages. They also printed the wrong ballot type for some voters.
Dallas County Elections says it notified the company, Election Systems & Software, and sent device logs for review. The agency says it received this response about 3 p.m. Monday.
“The issue was caused by the pollbook workflow not displaying an indication that the devices were processing information input by the poll workers. Repeat touches then caused the pollbooks to exhibit one of the three behaviors described above.”
The elections department says it had two conference calls with the company Monday, and after the second, the company offered a software update that would notify workers when the computers were processing information. The company said that would help workers avoid slower performance.
"DCED is aware that, due to this electronic poll book issue, voters experienced long wait times on the first day of Early Voting. Dallas County Elections Department sincerely apologizes to the voters affected, and thanks them for their patience throughout the process," the elections department wrote in a statement.
Dallas County Elections says no voter received an incorrect ballot.
"DCED remains dedicated to ensuring a fair, accessible, secure, and transparent election," the department said.
The Texas Secretary of State says 1,006,104 people across the state voted Monday, accounting for 5.4% of registered voters. Fifteen counties had turnout of more than 10%.
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