As most voters know in the November 5 election, we had a problem with our electronic survey booksthat slowed down, causing people to wait up to an hour to vote. Some voters weren’t able to wait long or come back later, and I truly apologize to anyone who finds themselves in that situation. The good news is that there were probably very few people like that.

When comparing turnout numbers in Jefferson to other big blue counties, such as Fayette, there was almost exactly the same percentage drop in votes from 2020 to 2024. Therefore, the morning delays did not affect the results.

Let me give you some details about what really happened, now that we’ve had a chance to review it.

First, our outstanding team of election officials were able to work under pressure in that demanding environment and then help us fix the issue that was slowing down the electronic poll books by mid-morning. Some police stations took longer.

At least one of our election officials wrote to the Courier Journal complain about a comment from my office; and also ask some detailed questions about the electronic survey books we use. I can categorically state: in no way were our district officers to blame. In explaining to the public that morning about the delay, we mentioned initial reports that precincts that had not activated their electronic poll books early in their setup were having more trouble downloading data from the Wi-Fi connection. We always train our officers to do this as a first step, but they have a lot to prepare before 6am and the data download usually doesn’t take that long.

Letters: I am an election worker. As people waited to vote, I saw another side of Kentucky.

As it turned out, there was too much data for the Wi-Fi system that morning on Election Day and turning it on early wouldn’t help appreciably.

Second, the State Board of Elections requires us to use electronic poll books starting in 2020, replacing paper rolls. These are relatively new items, and unlike the simple, robust optical scan voting machines we have used to count our votes for decades, there is still a learning curve with this technology. Initially, we had a product from a smaller company called Tenex that had limited features and support. In 2023, we opted for the ES&S product, which allowed things like automatic selection to print ballots on demand. That’s why early voting now happens so quickly.

But we also have more than 200 voting sites on Election Day and a large amount of equipment to deliver days in advance. That’s why we use a wi-fi upgrade process on Election Day, rather than waiting until Sunday to download wired data and then deliver the machines. Until now, this was adequate and our provider was confident that this process could handle more data, but it turned out to be optimistic.

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Now that we know and understand what happened, it will be fairly easy to remedy this issue and our 2026 vote should go smoothly. In the 26 years I have been county clerk, I am pleased to say that we have had virtually no problems conducting our elections, even in the challenging COVID year of 2020.

I am confident that, with the excellent bipartisan staff we have at our Election Center and the thousands of civic-minded election workers who volunteer to serve every election, future elections will continue to be as secure, accurate and as delay-free as possible. the law.

Bobbie Holsclaw is the Jefferson County Clerk.

This article originally appeared in the Louisville Courier Journal: Opinion: Jefferson County voting delays won’t happen in 2026 election