Fresno mayoral candidate Janz calls for extended voting hours after computer delays
Andrew Janz wants vote centers to stay open an extra hour tonight after data issues caused hours of delays at the polls early on Super Tuesday.
He and other Democratic candidates held a news conference outside the Fresno Superior Court. Janz said the problems affected vote centers countywide.
The issues are “very concerning, especially for voters who are persons of color, who have to work during the day, people who are of very little means,“ Janz said.
Fourteen other counties also had issues, according to Fresno County Registrar of Voters Brandi Orth.
Janz has been in contact with the Secretary of State’s office.
“We are being told by the Secretary of State’s office that Fresno County is having the worst (problems),” Janz said.
He said studies have shown that people of color and progressives tend to vote on Election Day, while Republicans tend to vote earlier, implying that the problems could disproportionately affect Democratic candidates.
Some vote centers across Fresno County had connection problems. The issues were reported shortly after 9 a.m. By 11 a.m. all 53 vote centers were up and running as normal, Orth said
Orth said some vote centers were down for five to 10 minutes and some vote centers had issues for a period of up to 1.5 hours.
She said that for several hours the centers had “intermittent electronic problems.“ Five to seven of the Secretary of State’s servers had to be rebooted.
That “meant that centers were running really slow,” she said.
Similar issues were reported in other California counties, The Sacramento Bee reported.
Election officials in Sacramento County say a connectivity issue involving the California Secretary of State’s voter file database forced local vote centers to look up voters’ info and print ballots manually, slowing the process considerably for a number of voters Tuesday morning.
Secretary of State spokesman Chris Miller confirmed the office has had technical issues related to the database, but said he did not have more specific details.
“We are aware of some issues that have been going on, and we’re continuing to monitor it,” Miller said.
Janz said later in the afternoon that he had spoken to the Secretary of State and requested polls stay open an extra hour.
“He said it’s a high bar to pass for him to do that,” and that he would need a court order, Janz said.
The state Democratic party is considering filing legal action to extend voting by an hour, said Humberto Gomez Jr., regional director of the California Democratic Party, stretching from Fresno County to Kern County.
Janz’ opponent for mayor, Jerry Dyer said he disagreed with Janz’ efforts to keep polling places open later.
“This is nothing more than Andrew Janz trying to create a solution in search of a problem in order to get free press,” he said. “In my lifetime there has never been more of an opportunity for the people of Fresno to cast their vote. In reality, we do not have an Election Day, we have an election month.”
He noted that every voter was sent a mail-in ballot and voting centers have been open for the last 11 days. Voters could also vote provisionally during the computer issues, he said.
Voting changes
Voting in Fresno County was different this year, after the Fresno County Board of Supervisors adopted the California Voter’s Choice Act, which gives voters several days to vote by mail or in person. It does away with the old system of 268 precincts.
Polling places are no longer using binders to look up names and addresses of voters, but look them up in a Fresno County database instead.
Workers were calling in voter information to the county elections office to verify so they could cast provisional ballots, she said.
Fresno voter Jennifer Tarazon said she waited about 45 minutes to vote.
“I almost walked out,” she said. “It kind of makes me doubt the system. It’s like is this legit versus good old fashioned counting ballots?”
Valarie Cooper, an election coordinator at the voting center located at the Central California Blood Center at Herndon and Brawley avenues, said the polling place had “some angry people, but most have been very patient.”
“It’s a big mess,” said Dustin Way, who waited an hour and 15 minutes with his young son to vote.
He said some people at the center left without voting.
“There were 12 to 14 people ahead of me who said ‘screw it’ and just left with the attitude that they weren’t going to come back to vote,” he said.
The experience was frustrating, he said. “It seems to be something every year. “
Orth said in an email that most voters waited at the polls, while some left and came back.
She added that some voters left and went to another vote center. There may have been some voters who did not come back, but Orth said that was a small number.
Many votes centers like this one had been operating for 10 days with no problems. But the influx of voters Tuesday was far higher than previous days.
Each vote center had an IT support person working to get the system back online. Each laptop was slowly getting access to the voter database, Cooper said.
Voters can still drop off ballots they received in the mail and filled out at home.
With voting centers open several hours after the issues were solved, Orth reminded voters that they could vote at any vote center in the county.
“I think there’s ample opportunity by voters to participate because it happened so early in the morning,” she said.
The Sacramento Bee’s Michael McGough contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 10:30 AM with the headline "Fresno mayoral candidate Janz calls for extended voting hours after computer delays."
