Virginia Online Registration System Taken Down Statewide Because of Computer Outage on Final Day

On the final day of voter registration in Virginia, the online registration system has been taken down statewide due to a computer outage.

Visitors who went online to the state portal this morning were met with this message: “Due to a network outage the Citizen Portal is temporarily unavailable.”

The state portal is used for first-time registrations and registration updates. It allows Virginia residents to apply for an absentee ballot and to see where their nearest in-person polling location is. The elections department also allows the residents to register before November’s deadline through a paper form that could be mailed in but must be post-dated.

Spokeswoman Andrea Gains for the Election Department said that the issue was a cut fiber cable and that they do not have an estimated time on when the system would be back up but they are working to restore the service.

Gaines said in a statement, “This morning the Department of Elections was alerted by the Virginia Information Technology Agency that a fiber cut near Rt. 10 in Chester near the Commonwealth Enterprise Solutions Center (CESC) was impacting data circuits and virtual private network (VPN) connectivity for multiple Commonwealth agencies.” She said, “This has affected the Department’s citizen portal along with local registrar’s offices across the Commonwealth.”

State lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, had to ask for an extension of the deadline. He said, “I am officially calling for Virginia’s Registration Deadline to be extended beyond today due to the service outages impacting voters’ ability to register statewide.”

Department of Elections officials has not commented on whether registration would be extended.