It’s happening again! Microsoft Service Disruption keeps people in voting line for over 3 hours in Sioux Falls!
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – South Dakota’s voting system hit a roadblock on Friday, slowing in-person absentee voting in Sioux Falls. The glitch left some voters in long lines and raised questions about readiness for Election Day
The line at the Minnehaha Administration Building eventually started moving through as normal. However, the line was still very long, at one point people were almost where ballots were being cast.
At that point, Minnehaha County Auditor workers had people in line going down the stairs.
Around 11:30 a.m., TotalVote, the statewide registration system, went down causing people to wait over three hours to vote and many were happy to do so.
“Just a sense of civic duty, my rights and the rights of others are at stake, so I’m gonna stand here for as long as it takes,” Minnehaha County voter Paul Dapper said.
During the delay, Minnehaha County Auditor Leah Anderson and her staff were setting out chairs and doing whatever they could to make the wait a little more bearable for those in line.
“We had four cases of water for our workers for Tuesday and so I just brought those up so they would have water,” Anderson said.
Around 3:00 p.m., the TotalVote system went back up.
However, that meant people waited for over three hours before they were finally able to vote, some joking that they “survived November first.”
South Dakota Secretary of State Monae Johnson confirmed this was a Microsoft Service disruption and she also confirmed that no ballots were affected due to the issue.
All ballots are stored in a secure place until they are counted on Election Day.
