Delayed Suffolk Election Results Caused By Wi-Fi Outage: Report

PATCHOGUE, NY — Suffolk County Board of Elections workers had difficulty loading memory cards needed to tally the final vote in key races — including the gubernatorial race with incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul and U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, as well as hotly-contested congressional districts.

GOP Chairman Jesse Garcia told Newsday that BOE workers had planned to load the memory cards at the county's regional hubs after the polls closed, but a Wi-Fi outage led to the delayed publication of 450,000 election night results for all of the races Suffolk voters cast their ballots in.

Addressing the crowd at the watch party at Stereo Garden in Patchogue, Garcia said that to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the elections, memory cards from 24 locations from all the county’s election districts are uploaded to a server, but “the system is slow and not operating,” according to footage aired by News 12.

“We’ve waited 28 years to elect a governor and it looks like we're gonna need a little bit couple more hours to do that,” he added in the broadcast.

A decision was made by workers to drive the 1,400 memory cards to the BOE's Yaphank headquarters and then upload them, Garcia told the crowd, adding, “so that we have an accurate count of this election.”

Garcia pledged to share any numbers as they came in, and then urged the crowd to enjoy themselves as it might be hours for results to come in, according to News 12's broadcast.

“I truly appreciate your indulgence in this,” he said. “And I look forward to celebrating with each and every one of you, and each and every one of our residents, and Suffolk County’s elected Republican team.”

“Thank you so much everyone,” he added.

News 12 also showed Democratic Chairman Rich Schaffer addressing Dems gathered in Hauppauge, telling them that he also believed it might be hours before the results are in.

Newsday reported Schaffer said the results might not come until around 2:30 a.m.

He indicated that Gov. Kathy Hochul was doing very well, and indicated that so were local Dems.

Hochul declared victory at the state Dems’ headquarters in New York City a short time later.

News 12 reported that its correspondent over at Suffolk BOE’s headquarters has been told the results might not come until sometime Wednesday night.

Results started trickling in after midnight, but the vote count continued into Wednesday.

Deputy Elections Commissioner Gail Lolis told Newsday officials had concerns about the uploading of the memory cards.

"We were having some difficulty with the uploading from the field, so we decided to have our staff take all the results … back to the Board [of Elections] to upload directly into the server," she said.

They tested the cards in the field and "everything worked fine" before election night, she told the outlet, adding, "We're not taking any chances. We don't want to take any chances of posting inaccurate unofficial results."

Suffolk has been experiencing setbacks with its web-based applications, and some department homepages, like the BOE's, have not been working since a ransomware attack on Sept. 8.

Officials were prompted to take down some of the county's online services, including web pages and email, while they investigated.

News 12 reported that new passwords and security measures after the cyberattack might have caused confusion and issues uploading for remote voting areas.