Early voting in Riverside County was snarled by delays Saturday due to heavy traffic in the voter registration lookup system, increasing the wait time at the polls.

“Some of the voter assistance centers are experiencing intermittent delays in processing voters due to significant volume in the voter registration lookup system,” said Brooke Federico, a public information officer for Riverside County. “The county team is working diligently to ensure that all sites are processing voters as quickly as possible.”

She said some voters were offered provisional ballots if their polling location was experiencing delays.

Around noon, state Sen. Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, tweeted, “Voting machines in Riverside County are down. We are working on finding out what the problem is and when the registrar will have this fixed. This is completely unacceptable.”

Federico explained to City News Service that the delay was not due to machines being down, but rather, the result of delays in the voter registration lookup system.

Some voters took to social media to complain about the delays and hourslong lines at voting centers.

“Voters at all locations are asked to be patient,” Federico said.

The county on Saturday opened 130 voter assistance centers, which will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Monday.

On Election Day, the voting centers will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Voters are not assigned to a specific voter assistance center and may visit any of the 130 locations.

More information is available at voteinfo.net.

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