The Secretary of State’s office has identified a computer glitch as the cause of a problem Tuesday that blocked an unknown number of Oregonians from registering to vote in advance of a midnight deadline. Computer techs at the Secretary of State’s office believe the problem was likely due to a communications error between their servers and systems at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Spokeswoman Andrea Cantu-Schomus says while the system was down voters were greeted by a message telling them they could submit their changes by mail as long as they were postmarked that same day. She says the problem primarily seemed to affect requests for new registrations rather than changes to existing ones.
“It looks like we had close to 5000 people hit our website yesterday during the 24 hour period. How they were affected, we don’t know.” Cantu-Schomus says the problem has been resolved, but techs are looking for ways to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Ballots for the May primary will start going out to voters in the mail on Friday.
Source: Computer Glitch Blocks Online Voter Registrations · OPB News.