DuPage County suspends early voting due to technical problems

DuPage County officials halted early voting Thursday morning after experiencing technical problems. Voting in the county is expected to resume Friday.

Adam Johnson, chief deputy clerk for the county clerk, said the voter registration database was not pulling up the correct dates of birth for some voters. Instead, it used their registration dates.

In addition, an issue caused the name of Jerry Cook, a Democratic candidate for the Kane County Regional Office of Education, to be excluded from ballots. The western edge of DuPage is within the office’s jurisdiction.

Cook’s nominating petitions were challenged, but the objection was denied and his name was allowed to appear on ballots.

Johnson said he was not aware of anyone being unable to vote due to the problems, but officials decided to suspend voting while working with its database vendor to fix the issues.

“We want to be able to make sure everything is functioning correctly before starting again tomorrow,” Johnson said.

Early voting is taking place at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton, the Addison Township offices, the Bartlett Community Center, Downers Grove Village Hall and the Naperville Municipal Center.

DuPage has “vote anywhere” capability, meaning voters can use any polling place in the county to cast their ballots.

Early voting for the Nov. 3 election began Thursday statewide, except in Cook County.

Meanwhile, Johnson said the DuPage clerk’s office won’t send vote-by-mail ballots until next week.

While Thursday was the first day clerks could send vote-by-mail ballots, Johnson said it isn’t required. He said the clerk’s office has waited to send them in case of any last-minute changes to the ballot.

ssarkauskas@dailyherald.com