The Delaware Valley Journal has learned that the statewide SURE system has not been working properly today, Oct. 24, which has impacted printing ballots across the state.
The SURE system is an online registry that officials use to determine who is a registered voter.
“Statewide, the SURE system has been up and down, which impacts processing the applications, not printing the ballots. Harrisburg officials have reported that they have teams looking into resolving the issues. This is impacting all 67 counties’ operations in processing applications, whether they’re mail-in forms, online forms or in-person forms,” said James Allen, director of Voter Services for Delaware County.
Raffi Terzian, chair of the Chester County GOP, is very concerned about the impact on voter turnout.
“We’re having a robust early voter turnout,” said Terzian. “And Pennsylvania is the battleground. We’re the key state in the whole nation.”
Rebecca Brain, a spokesperson for Chester County, said the outage was temporary and the system was working again by late morning.
“There was a temporary outage of the SURE system, and during that time Voter Services provided options for the processing of mail-in ballots for those who were at the two Satellite Offices that are open today in Chester County. The system is now up and running,” Brain said.
Amy Gulli, director of communications at the Department of State, downplayed the incident, saying there was “a brief IT outage impacting the SURE system, the statewide voter registration database, rendered the system inaccessible for about 90 minutes this morning. The Department was in contact with our county partners and the network administrator during that time. Connectivity has been restored to all counties, and we continue to work with them to assist voters and administer the general election. No voters were prevented from applying for their mail ballot during that time.”
