Riverside Voters Experience Delays, Confusion At Vote Centers

RIVERSIDE, CA — Riverside County voters experienced long lines and delays Saturday as officials scrambled to resolve issues with computers used to look up voter registration. One lawmaker claimed the electronic voting machines were down, but county officials said that was not the case.

"Voting machines in Riverside County are down," state Sen. Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore said in a tweet around noon. "We are working on finding out what the problem is and when the registrar will have this fixed. This is completely unacceptable."

Voters are being processed at the Riverside County voter assistance centers. We are aware of some delays and working to resolve quickly.

Please check back for updates. #RivCoNOw @RivCoRegistrar pic.twitter.com/zCLQwcjrzr
— Riverside County Now (@RivCoNow) October 31, 2020

Despite Melendez' tweet, Brooke Federico, a public information officer for Riverside County, confirmed that machines were not down.

"Some of the voter assistance centers are experiencing intermittent delays in processing voters due to significant volume in the voter registration lookup system," Federico said. "The county team is working diligently to ensure that all sites are processing voters as quickly as possible."

Federico said there were no reported delays with ballot marking machines, which are not connected to the internet and only mark ballots that are printed and then cast in a ballot box.

Still, voters took to Twitter Saturday to lament about the delays and hours-long lines at voting centers

"Voters at all locations are asked to be patient," Federico said.

Election officials were reportedly telling voters at vote centers to fill out paper ballots until the issues with the voting system were resolved.

The county on Saturday opened 130 voter assistance centers, which will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Monday.

On Election Day, the voting centers will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Voters are not assigned to a specific voter assistance center and may visit any of the 130 locations.

Voting machines in Riverside County are down. We are working on finding out what the problem is and when the registrar will have this fixed. This is completely unacceptable.
— Senator Melissa Melendez (@senatormelendez) October 31, 2020

The City News Service contributed to this report.
***This is a breaking news story, refresh for updates.