Commotion: Voting Booths Down in Spalding

Christopher Frawley

Politics

3rd November 2020

Commotion: Voting Booths Down in Spalding

The machines are down due to a glitch (Getty Images).

The Claim

The polling systems have gone down in Spalding County, Georgia, on Election Day.

News posted on

Emerging story

The long-expected U.S. presidential election has had more than its fair share of controversies over the past year, but there’s still time to fit in a few more before the day is over.

According to poll workers, information was incorrectly loaded into the Spalding County system this morning. As a result polling machines are no longer working properly due to a “glitch.”

Officials are currently scrambling to fix the issues, with limited success in some precincts. Other voting locations will likely not be back online in-time for the conclusion of the election. Agitated voters have been forced to use pen-and-paper ballots and have expressed skepticism at how likely their votes are to be actually counted.

Misbar’s Analysis

With fears of election interference at an all-time-high, many on social media began pointing fingers at who might possibly be to blame. Sabotage has been suggested by both Republicans and Democrats. Twitter users have pointed out that Spalding County voted Republican in the last presidential election, and that the area has a concentration of black/African American people (34.9% of the population). Both of these details have been used as evidence of election interference.

It is entirely possible that the voting system going down was due to incompetence or accidents. Voting issues also came up two years ago during the mid-term elections. Georgia also experienced troubles then, in addition to other areas. According to Lawrence Norden, a voting technology expert, failures in the election infrastructure are at least in part due to outdated equipment. Issues have also sprung up in various places across the country as Election Day continues.