Montgomery County voters typically have until 7 p.m. to make it to the polls on Election Day, but today, polls will remain open for an extra 45 minutes. 

A software problem impacted “a majority” of polling places this morning and led to the extension. 

“We wanted to make sure that we gave voters here in Montgomery County a full 12 hours to be able to vote,” County Probate Judge J.C. Love said. 

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When the first voters of the day began to arrive at their polling places around 7 a.m., workers noticed an issue with the electronic poll books that wouldn’t allow voters to complete the check-in process, according to the probate court. 

“We contacted KNOWinK, and they’re the vendor for those electronic poll books,” Love said. “They went in, saw that there was a problem and had to go in and reconfigure some things in their software in order to allow the check in process to continue.”

Many precincts were up and running within 10 minutes of discovering the problem, but Love said there were more rural areas of the county where the problems weren’t resolved until closer to 7:45 a.m.

In the meantime, Love said the county was able to use Cradlepoint — a technology company based in Boise, Idaho — to estimate and broadcast polling place wait times. To see current wait time estimations, visit montgomeryvotesal.gov. 

Hadley Hitson covers the rural South for the Montgomery Advertiser and Report for America. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com.