Broward voting delayed 20 minutes at opening and Duval tabulator broke, supervisors say; no order changing Florida poll hours found by 4 p.m.

Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd said at a news conference that elections were “going smoothly” and that “nothing we’ve seen will require polls being open past 7 p.m.,” the Washington Examiner reported at 3:48 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, in a passage on flooding that names neither Broward nor Duval.¹ Supervisors in those counties described morning technical problems: a new ballot-check feature held up voting for 20 minutes at sites across Broward, and a tabulator broke at one Duval site.²³ SignalData found no court order or state notice changing poll hours as of 4 p.m. Polls in both counties close at 7 p.m., and voters in line by then may vote.⁴⁵

Broward County

The Associated Press reported that voting was delayed at sites across the county as polls opened because a new bar code safety feature malfunctioned. Supervisor Joe Scott said the state’s late redistricting put some voters in the same precinct on different ballots, and that the feature was meant to keep poll workers from handing out the wrong one. He said an error message wrongly told some voters they were on the wrong ballot.²

“Nobody voted on the wrong ballot,” Scott said, adding, “None of the counts were impacted.” AP said the problem was solved by 7:20 a.m., and that Scott apologized, said some people left before voting and urged them to return.²⁶

WSVN, at 8:20 a.m., said the county reported “a systemwide issue that affected Broward polling sites for between 10 and 15 minutes” that “has since been fixed.”⁷

Duval County

Supervisor Jerry Holland told Action News Jax in a report posted at 11:13 a.m. that a tabulator broke at Community Presbyterian Church in Atlantic Beach. Voters put ballots in the machine’s emergency slot, which leads to a locked compartment, and poll workers will feed them into a machine after polls close, the station reported. Voters may return to watch. Holland said a replacement was on its way.³⁸

Regency Square Branch Library and The Church of Eleven22’s Arlington campus lost power before polls opened, during an outage in the Regency area. Generators ran the machines and power returned, the station reported; Holland said both sites opened on time.³⁸ Action News Jax put the outage at more than 5,000 customers; First Coast News said as many as 5,437.³⁵

What state manuals and law say

A state file of the Division of Elections’ polling place manual, marked effective 06/2024, tells poll workers at closing: “Check all emergency and auxiliary bins for any voted ballots.” For ballots cast during a power outage, it refers them to the Voting Systems Operations Manual.⁹ State Rule 1S-2.034 adopts the manual as Form DS-DE 11, listing an effective date of 07/2024.¹⁰ Section 101.5614 of the Florida Statutes, on canvassing returns, does not mention tabulator failure or emergency bins.¹¹

What the records do not show

• Any Department of State or Division of Elections statement naming these technical problems. The division’s homepage had none about 4 p.m.; its emergency resources page was dated Oct. 25, 2024. The department’s press release list, as opened, showed nothing newer than Feb. 17, although search results list later releases.¹²¹³¹⁴
• A court order extending hours. Searches found none by 4 p.m.; that is not a review of county court dockets.
• A Broward or Duval statement on the supervisors’ own sites. Broward’s newest listed release is dated Nov. 2; Duval’s list, as opened, showed nothing from November.¹⁵¹⁶
• How many voters left in Broward, how many ballots went into the Atlantic Beach compartment or when the replacement arrived.
• Any technical problem in another Florida county. Searches found no report of one and no statewide tally.
• A manual copy marked 07/2024, or Duval’s Voting Systems Operations Manual.⁹
• Pages that could not be opened: Florida Voice News, Florida Phoenix, NBC News and FIU’s Caplin News.