Virginia needs to process 107,000 voter records ahead of the election due to IT snafu

A summer’s worth of work was dumped on Virginia election staffers just over a month before the midterm election because of computer network issues.

A total of 107,000 voter records went unprocessed until October 5. The records were sent in through the commonwealth’s DMV, and were intended to update addresses, register to vote, and make other changes to voting status.

Virginia Elections Commissioner Susan Beals said in a statement that the problem stemmed from unspecified “intermittent network issues.”

“No voter registration data was lost, but the issue will cause an increase in processing voter registration applications at the local level,” Beals said.

That’s going to be a heavy lift for registrars, who are now essentially going to be forced into overtime to make up the difference.

“Every registrar’s office could use about 10 more people right at this moment,” Chesterfield Registrar Missy Vera told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Help! It’s unclear how exactly the problem started, but the Washington Post reported that Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who won the gubernatorial race last year, had his administration shut down Virginia’s main voter registration system VERIS in April and May for an update. The VERIS system is 15 years old.

“This is work that we should have been doing all summer and fall that we’re just getting today,” Mark J. Coakley, Henrico County general registrar and director of elections, told the Post. “We want to get them out as quickly as possible. You just can’t do that in an eight-hour day with absentee [voting] going as well. We’re working tonight and tomorrow and see how far we get and if we need to come in on Saturday.”

The news just emphasizes the need for strong IT teams in Virginia civic institutions, tweeted Virginia State Delegate Sally Hudson.

“From unemployment to the voter rolls, Virginia’s IT systems continue to choke,” Hudson wrote. “We can build better civic tech—we just have to get our priorities straight: fewer cash cow consultants, more in-house tech talent.”—EH

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