Virginia online voter registration website down hours before the deadline

In what’s quick changing into a sample for voter registration within the 2020 presidential election, technical difficulties have befallen one other state’s voter registration web site on the final day residents can register. This time, Virginians are locked out of the power to register on-line.

As of publication time, Virginians hoping to register by way of the location’s internet portal must discover one other means to take action earlier than Tuesday’s 11:59 pm deadline, as the location says it’s “quickly unavailable” attributable to a “community outage” that would not have come at a worse time. Guests to the web site at present get an error message saying it’s quickly unavailable however service will likely be restored “as shortly as potential.”

The issue, in keeping with the state’s Data Expertise Company, is {that a} fiber optic cable offering web to the state’s Enterprise Options Middle was in some way minimize, taking the voter registration web site down with it.

“A crew working in a single day on a roadside utilities challenge severed fiber cables,” Krys Grondorf of Verizon informed Recode. “It was not a Verizon crew that severed the cable — it was a county roadside utilities challenge.”

“This has affected the Division’s citizen portal together with native registrar’s workplaces throughout the Commonwealth,” Andrea Gaines of the Virginia Division of Elections informed Recode. “Verizon technicians are on web site and dealing to restore the minimize; updates will likely be offered as work progresses.”

Gaines didn’t reply to questions on how the cable was minimize, how lengthy the outage is anticipated to final, or what treatments the state will present to make up for the misplaced time.

Potential voters can nonetheless register Tuesday by printing out a voter registration type and dropping it off at a voter registration workplace in particular person or by mailing it (be sure it’s postmarked October 13).

Final week, Florida’s voter registration web site crashed within the closing hours of registration. Whereas the Florida secretary of state initially stated the outage was temporary, it turned out to final for a number of hours, doubtlessly stopping tens of hundreds of registrations. The state ended up extending registration for seven hours the subsequent day, albeit in the midst of the day and with little discover.

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