Election Day ’24: Champaign County works to extend voting hours to 21 | News

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URBANA — System errors that led to inoperable voting machines at polling places throughout Champaign County Tuesday morning have been resolved, Clerk Aaron Ammons said shortly after 1 p.m.

But a separate problem — power outages from overnight storms — left voters who showed up at west Champaign’s Hays Center unable to cast ballots early on Election Day.

The power went out around 8:15 a.m., affecting at least 400 customers, according to the Ameren outage map. Service is not expected to resume until 10.15

To make up for the time lost due to morning system glitches, Ammons said his office is “working to extend the voting hours until 9:00 p.m.”

The matter will go before a Champaign County judge, State’s Attorney Julia Rietz told The News-Gazette. The general rule is that polling stations open at 6.00 and is open to all voters in line at 19.00

Voters lined up at several locations early today said they were told by election officials that technical difficulties had delayed the process. In some cases, they queued because it was uncertain how long it would take to remedy the situation.

Ammons blamed the county’s “vendor” for the problem.

Colleen and Mark Ruebke of rural Urbana went to vote at the Somer Township Building shortly after 1 p.m.

Colleen Ruebke said election officials took their contact information and indicated they would take action once the issues were resolved.

“It was very frustrating,” she said. “We’re retired so we don’t have to go to work. I feel sorry for the people in line who said they couldn’t wait any longer and had to go to work.”

St. Joseph’s Sterling Frye went to three polling places this morning – to no avail. He had to go to work in Champaign and said he hopes to vote later today.

“Really frustrating,” he said. “I usually vote early, but this year I wanted to hold out and actually vote on Election Day. I go and do it and it’s been taken away from me.”

Heading into today, close to 52,000 voters had already cast their ballots in the general election, Deputy Secretary Angie Patton told The News-Gazette. That’s more than half the total number of voters the last time the president was on the ballot (96,185 in 2020).

Tuesday’s crash was reminiscent of malfunctions in 2022, when connectivity issues and server performance slowed voting at some polling locations. At the time, Ammons attributed the problems to the county’s vendor being the target of cyberattacks.

“I understand this is incredibly frustrating, but it’s important for everyone to maintain their commitment to exercise their right to vote,” incumbent state Sen. Paul Faraci, D-Champaign, told The News-Gazette Tuesday morning. “… I encourage everyone to stick with it because every vote matters.”

His Republican opponent took a different view.

“I can’t believe we have this problem,” Jeff Brownfield said. “There was a similar problem a few years ago. This should not be acceptable to our community.”