Problems reported on first day early voting
The first day of early voting began with some hiccups, but most of the issues were reported as resolved by the end of the day.
Four early voting sites lost connectivity with electronic polling books before noon Wednesday, but the Shelby County Election Commission said voters were checked in manually at three of those locations until the issue was resolved.
A fourth voting site, Collierville Church of Christ, didn’t realize they could check people in manually, said Suzanne Thompson, spokeswoman for the commission. Some morning voters there were told to wait or go to another location.
The connectivity issues were resolved before 2:15 p.m., Thompson said.
She emphasized the actual voting machines worked all day and voters who had to check in manually did vote on the machines.
Several people complained online about long lines at some voting locations. Other locations had shorter or no waits.
One poll watcher with the Tennessee Democratic Party’s Voter Protection Program said the Mississippi Boulevard Church site nearly ran out of paper ballot request forms while dealing with connectivity issues.
“Once these forms were processed, the voters were able to use the voting machines,” he wrote in his report.
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“Nonetheless, some voters became confused and left the polling place in frustration.”
Earlier in the day, Corey Strong, chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Party, visited the election commission office after hearing reports of problems at voting sites.
“I think they’re working on it, but at the end of the day every vote lost affects our public confidence,” Strong said.
On Tuesday, the election commission announced not all applications would be processed before voting began.
Poll workers can call a helpline if someone is not on the voter lists, giving the election commission a chance to fill out missing information from that person’s application and process it immediately. If that doesn’t work, voters may fill out provisional ballots.
Van Turner, chairman of the Shelby County Commission, said they are reextending an invitation for the election commission to attend one of their meetings. The election commission was invited to a meeting Monday but did not attend.
He said he is concerned about reports of voting machines being down and that the Tennessee Black Voters Project, which the election commission said submitted the majority of last-minute and incomplete registrations, has filed a lawsuit.
“We’re very interested in whether or not persons who submitted registration forms which have not been processed by the time the election started, we’re concerned if they were able to actually vote or if they were turned away,” Turner said.
A list of early voting locations is available online. Most locations are open from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. during the week, with some exceptions.
Early voting in Shelby County continues through Nov. 1.