At least two polling places in Illinois briefly reported voting system problems an hour after the state’s polls opened on Election Day. One of the problems was in a precinct in Chicago.
Some voters in Illinois and the Chicago area said on social media that they were having trouble at the polling places, which led to the update.
Max Bever, a public information officer for the Chicago Board of Elections, told NBC Chicago just after 8 a.m. Tuesday that technical problems were affecting voters in the 12th Precinct. Their polling place was Ogden Elementary, which is located at 24 E. Walton.
Bever said that the place was “having a problem with their e-pollbooks” and that this was only happening to voters in the 12th precinct. If voters could not stay or come back by 7 p.m., they were told to go to the closest polling place, Bever said.
Around 9:50 a.m., Bever told NBC Chicago that the problem with the Ogden Elementary e-pollbook had been fixed.
Downstate in Champaign County, Chief Deputy Clerk Angela Patton told NBC 5 just after 7 a.m. that there were technical problems at polling places in the county.
Patton also said that the county was waiting to hear from the vendor about a possible fix or report on the situation.
Patton also said that Champaign County was not the only county in Illinois having problems, but it was not clear right away which other counties were having problems.
“Other counties are reporting the same issues not being able to process voters/system is down,” he said.
Patton said that Aaron Ammons, the clerk for Champaign County, was working with the office of the Illinois state’s attorney to make voting hours longer.
“Please be patient, we are doing everything we can,” he said.
There were problems with the voting system in Champaign County, but they were fixed by 7:23 a.m., and Clerk Ammons was planning to make voting hours last until 9 p.m.