Dallas County Elections addresses poll book glitch on first day of in-person early voting
The Dallas County Elections Department is addressing an issue that led to long wait times for some voters on the first day of in-person early voting.
DCED said the problem was first reported early Monday morning when poll workers noticed a black screen that required devices to be restarted to continue checking voters in. They also said there was a repeated error message and poll books printing the wrong ballot type for some voters.
DCED said they were made aware that some of the devices printed the wrong ballot type but the issue was identified early on and the impact was contained.
The electronic poll books were collected from the polling locations and sent to the vendor, Election Systems & Software, for review.
The vendor identified a fix, and DCED pushed an update to the poll books which solved the issue. The update took effect before early voting locations opened on Tuesday, DCED said.
Turnout was lower on Monday compared to the first day of in-person early voting in the 2020 presidential election. It's unclear how much of an impact the poll book issue and some long wait times had on the drop in turnout.