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North Carolina Board of Elections Extends Voting in 8 Precincts Following Glitch

In this file image, voters cast their ballots at a polling station in Alhambra on Nov. 4, 2014. (Credit: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)

North Carolina’s Board of Elections on Tuesday extended voting in eight precincts by a variety of times, depending on the precinct, a victory for Democrats in the battleground state.

The times range from 20 to 60 minutes. The Durham County Board of Elections had requested a voting extension of 90 minutes county-wide after technical issues at several precincts earlier in the day forced election officials to switch to paper roll books from the electronic voter check-in system.

Earlier Tuesday, Democracy North Carolina, a nonprofit group, sued to extend hours in Durham County, which has a significant African-American population. The state elections board earlier extended voting in one precinct in Columbus County, a small county in the southeastern corner of the state. The county asked for 45 minutes but the state board allowed only 30 minutes extra voting time.

“As a result of these events, voting in Durham County was interrupted at multiple sites for at least one hour,” Democracy North Carolina said in a statement.

By state rules, all voting locations in the county have to be affected for an extension of voting hours. The county has brought in 60 additional staff to work on providing more data to the state on how much the voting has been affected, Durham County Board of Elections spokesperson Briana Khan said.

At least five precincts in North Carolina had to switch to paper roll books earlier in the day. The move came “out of an abundance of caution,” according to Patrick Gannon, spokesman for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

Longer wait times

The “glitches” in the check-in software forced the precincts to switch to paper poll books to check-in voters, but no votes cast will be affected, Gannon said.

The error, however, did cause longer-than-expected wait times at the polling locations, according to the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP.

“Number one: We demand that they fix this glitch,” Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of North Carolina NAACP, said in a statement obtained by CNN. “There were no glitches in early voting. Why now and why in a heavy black voting area?”

Thirty-seven percent of registered voters in Durham County are black.

According to Khan, the state board of elections is helping the county officials print extra poll books and get them to the affected precincts.

The county signed a new contract last year to use a new e-voting system designed by VR Systems. A spokeswoman for VR Systems declined comment about the problems in Durham County.

Gov. Pat McCrory, who is running for re-election Tuesday, told CNN that he had spoken to election officials and that they had it under control.

“I want the votes counted as quick as they can in all counties in North Carolina,” McCrory said. “I just talked to the elections board supervisor and said that I want every vote to count, and every vote will count.”

“We have our lawyers going to locations,” Barber said. “They also must encourage people not to leave because the problem is with system not the people.”

Barber told CNN that the group has lawyers throughout the state and that they are not ruling out legal action on any voter suppression issues.

Issue began early Tuesday

In past elections, the county had used paper roll books to check in voters, but switched to electronic check-in in October 2015, according to Khan.

The issue began around 6:45 a.m. EST Tuesday and all locations had a paper backup, Khan said. She said that the county board of elections had not heard reports that any wait times were longer than 45 minutes.

“We were having sporadic problems just getting all of our computers up at one time. One would go up and the other would drop off line,” said Glenn Reynolds, a precinct judge, who said problems began as soon as people began voting at his site. He said the system that they use to check voters in and verify their information was not consistently working.

At least one precinct in Durham County ran out of authorization to vote forms that all voters must fill out before they vote, the Durham County Board of Elections confirmed.

Precinct 31 was out of the forms that all voters must sign to before casting a ballot for about an hour and a half Tuesday morning before more forms were delivered.

The North Carolina NAACP said the polling location turned away at least 45 people in one hour because of the lack of forms. However, county election officials stressed that while some voters did voluntarily choose to leave because of the wait, no voters were turned away.

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