It will take a long time before it becomes clear whether the Republican party managed to achieve a major breakthrough in the American midterm elections. Observers believe that it is likely that in the "lower house", i.e. the House of Representatives, yes, but in the Senate, the fight is incredibly fierce.
What is certain, however, is that the technical side of voting in the "land of democracy" has once again proven to be "problematic" in some states. A voting machine error in a county in Arizona, an out-of-print ballot in a county in Pennsylvania, and a probable cyber attack in a county in Illinois hampered voting in the midterm congressional and local elections on Tuesday.
The Champaign County Sheriff's Office of the State of Illinois said on social media that they had a problem with the Internet connection of their voting machines, which was caused by a "cyber attack". The office detected connection and server problems on Tuesday afternoon, which they trace back to an online attack against the network and servers, the announcement states, according to which their Internet system has already faced a data overload (DDoS) attack in the past month.
In the state of Arizona, the Maricopa County Board of Elections reported a malfunction of the voting machines, which hindered the process of voting. The head of the board, Bill Gates, said that about 20 percent of the equipment did not detect the cast vote. At the same time, he added: everyone's vote will be counted, there is a backup solution, the affected voters can also place their ballot in a ballot box. He also drew attention to the fact that those who had a problem with the voting machine can visit any other polling station in the county.
A judge in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, ordered an extension of the vote after the election was hampered by a paper run out of voting machines.
Lesa S. Gelb announced that after some voters were unable to exercise their right to vote, the county will extend the opening hours of polling places by two hours.
Source and title image: MTI
