Some Richland County voting machines break down during GOP Senate runoff

Voters in some parts of Richland County faced delays Tuesday morning while voting in a Republican special election runoff.

Richland County elections director Rokey Suleman said voting machines in about a dozen precincts had problems early Tuesday morning. Voters there had to cast their picks on paper ballots.

Suleman said the issue was a programming error with some of the equipment. He said the error would have been caught during pre-election testing before a regularly-scheduled election, but there wasn’t time with the quick turnaround from the Aug. 14 primary election.

Suleman said replacement flash drives were sent to the affected precincts, and all machines were working normally by 8:45 a.m.

Republicans Benjamin Dunn and John Holler are running against each other Tuesday for the GOP nomination in Senate District 20, which covers much of downtown Columbia and northwestern Richland County as well as portions of Lexington County. Dunn and Holler were the top two finishers in a four-way primary race two weeks ago.

This story was originally published August 28, 2018 at 8:24 AM.