The March primary election hit a snag for voters in Dallas and Denton counties on election day Tuesday when elections websites went offline.
In Denton County, the Elections Administration’s website VoteDenton.com went offline on Tuesday morning. In Dallas County, DallasCountyVotes.org, which provides a central point to find candidate information and polling location, crashed by midmorning.
Service was restored to the Denton County website after 10:30 a.m.; in Dallas County service was restored early afternoon but users said it was slow loading.
Dallas County elections officials told NBC 5 the issue was "heavy traffic," making the site's servers experience "connectivity issues."
At the polls in Irving, voters said they were surprised by the Internet confusion.
"It is surprising that they wouldn't be prepared, especially knowing that today is the day to vote," said Audante Wadley, of Irving. "Especially if you're a first time voter, don't really know where to go or things like that. It could definitely affect turnout."
However, Wadley and several other voters told NBC 5 they had no issues locating their polling place.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Elections volunteer Samuel Hilton, of Grand Prairie, empathized with the website issues, but added voters have to take personal responsibility for knowing their personal polling place.
"You should be responsible enough to keep track with what's going on,” Hilton said. "If anything, as an American citizen, you should know what's going on."
For a short time on election day, the statewide website, VoteTexas.gov, also experienced an outage.
The problem was also attributed to high traffic.
Statewide, polls close at 7 p.m. CT/MT.
