Several county election websites in Florida experienced outages this week as early in-person voting commenced across the state. These disruptions impacted sites containing essential state election information, including voting locations and times.
According to state election officials, an investigation is ongoing to determine the cause. Initial suggestions point to heavy web traffic as a potential factor. The websites appeared to have been restored to working order by Tuesday.
VR Systems, a Tallahassee-based tech company providing hosting services for these election sites, acknowledged some sites began experiencing crashes last week. However, the company insists there is currently “no indication of malicious activity,” ruling out cyberattacks for the time being.
This incident echoes a similar situation from August, when county election websites faced outages, igniting fears of possible cyberattacks. Although the Florida Secretary of State, Cord Byrd, initially did not dismiss the possibility of hacking, VR Systems later accepted responsibility for the glitches.
Some counties, like Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas, offered backup versions of their websites, ensuring the availability of vital information for voters. Joe Scott, the election supervisor for Broward County, expressed concerns that the issues could be linked to those from the summer. However, VR Systems claims that significant changes were implemented, and outside experts were consulted to prevent recurrence.
Despite the website disruptions, in-person voting in Florida continued unaffected. Wesley Wilcox, the elections supervisor in Marion County, reported a strong early voter turnout. “All my early voting sites opened at 8 AM, and there were people in line at every one of them,” he said.
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