SHEILA A. MATHEWS :::
Spalding County voting machines are now functional after an alleged software glitch caused the machines to fail during the early hours of Election Day voting.
Spalding County Board of Elections Chairman Margaret Bentley said a representative of Dominion – the company responsible for Georgia’s new voting machines – was responsible for the software update.
“All I can tell you is Dominion – the company that installed the voting machines – did an update overnight and caused a glitch in the system, and therefore the machines were not working,” Bentley said. “People will be able to vote but some were initially voting using provisional ballots.”
Bentley said she read a news report citing “the same thing” in Morgan County.
Spalding County Election Supervisor Marcia Ridley could not be reached, but Bentley said Ridley was not notified of the glitch that took down all local voting machines until just before the polls were set to open at 7 a.m.
“I talked to her at probably 7:10 and that was what she called to let me know was going on,” Bentley said.
When asked why the Dominion representative – who has not been identified – would wait until the night before Election Day to update voting machine software, Bentley said, “We do not know. That was an issue we wondered – why in the world would they do it last night?”
She was unable to say precisely how long it took to bring Spalding County’s voting machines back online, but it was more than one hour into the voting day.
An investigator from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office is in Spalding County investigating the issue.
The GRIP will report additional information on this issue as it becomes available.
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