NSW voters struggling with online voting option iVote

Frustrated voters have taken to social media to complain about not getting through to the early iVote online option. Although the NSW Electoral Commission say as of this morning 172,339 voters have been successful in voting early online.

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Frustrated voters have taken to social media to complain about not getting through to the early iVote online option.

@NSWElectoralCom your ivote website isn’t working with Chrome browser and isn’t loading on Safari. #useless

— Katie Towers (@katiet75) March 22, 2019

Online applications have been open for a few weeks but it appears a last-minute surge by desperate voters has taken its toll on the system today.

Frustrated voters say they can't get through to the iVote site

Tweets today have described the iVote system as ‘useless’ and ‘stuffed’.

How long will the registration page for ivote be down? It’s not working currently.

— L.V. (@eltothev) March 22, 2019

The NSW Electoral Commission this afternoon confirmed problems with the iVote registration system.

However NSW Electoral Commissioner John Schmidt said voting using iVote has not been impacted by the issue.

“To date, 227,521 people have registered for iVote and 187,559 votes have been cast,” he said.

“The problem relating to online registrations has resulted in increased call volumes to our call centre.

If only NSWEC provided enough capacity on their computing infrastructure to handle the volume of registration requests so I can actually register for #iVote. pic.twitter.com/niAcfIdPmq

— David Dawg (@PNGDawg) March 22, 2019

@NSWElectoralCom iVote website is not working? Unable to access https://t.co/i2sSi6XTgb, getting 502 server error

— WalkerAvenue (@WalkerAvenue) March 22, 2019

@NSWElectoralCom
Why doesn't the NSWEC provide enough compute or config. the #iVote registration servers to handle the volume of traffic by NSW citizens wanting to register to vote?
You've had 4 years to prepare for this!
I've been trying all day and get the attached message... pic.twitter.com/c78GgnODVs

— David Dawg (@PNGDawg) March 22, 2019

“Our call centre is still processing registrations, however some people have been reaching a pre-recorded message asking them to call back later. This is due to the high volume of calls.

“We are currently working to resolve the iVote registration problem and apologise for the inconvenience.

“We have taken more than 34,000 calls today and will be open today to take iVote calls until 11pm AEDT.

“The call centre will re-open at 8am tomorrow morning.”

Tried to use IVote service but login failed. Who do i bill my wasted time to @GladysB

— the Surfing Punter (@SurfingPunter) March 22, 2019

If you can't make it to a booth tomorrow, iVote may be an option. Picture: Troy Snook

The details of all voting centres can be found at elections.nsw.gov.au.

Postal vote applications have closed, but people can register to use iVote internet and telephone voting up until 1pm on election day.

There are eligibility requirements to use iVote, so check at elections.nsw.gov.au.