Florida elections department voter lookup tool experiences intermittent outages
MIAMI - Some registered Florida voters had trouble accessing their polling precinct location online on Election Day.
They ran into trouble on the Florida Division of Elections website when trying to use the Voter Information Lookup tool.
After putting in their name and birthdate, they received an error message and were asked to try again later.
Ivan Castro, with the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Office, said in a statement that statewide there are reports of intermittent availability of the voter lookup application. He said the website's vendor is determining the cause.
"We have received word that the Voter Info Lookup, a widget found on our website to assist voters in accessing their voter information, is intermittently having problems populating information. We assume it's due to volume. This is a statewide issue," said Lisa Arneaud, with Broward's Supervisor of Elections Office.
She said if a voter needs to find their precinct, they can use the Election Day Precinct tool on the top of their homepage BrowardVotes.gov. There is also a dedicated call center ready to assist voters throughout the day. That number is (954) 357-VOTE (8683). Voters can also "Chat Live" with an agent on the BrowardVotes.gov homepage.
"Voting operations have not been impacted in any way. The county Supervisor of Elections' websites are still operable for any voter to look up their registration status. The state's courtesy website is encountering record-high traffic. Any voter having difficulty utilizing the state courtesy look-up web page should go to their county SOE webpage for the same service," according to a statement from the Florida Department of State.
The Florida Election Protection Coalition said while the problem does not affect the vote count or tabulation, it does affect voters' ability to access the ballot.
"The state must make it a priority to correct this issue. Thousands of voters are looking up their voter information and planning where to vote - this is a delay that interrupts their ability to cast their ballot. With hours left until the polls close, we must ensure that every eligible voter in Florida can participate in the democratic process," said Abdelilah Skhir, ACLU of Florida senior strategist.
Voters who experience look-up tool issues can call their Supervisor of Elections to find out their polling location.
