Voters cast their ballots in a dark Brown Gym at Hopkinton Middle School on Tuesday morning. PHOTO/JOHN CARDILLO
Election Day got off to an interesting start, as power went out at Hopkinton Middle School just before the polls opened at 7 a.m. However, it did not cause a major problem.
According to Town Clerk Connor Degan, his crew was prepared for such a situation, and backup power to the election equipment went on immediately. His crew then brought in a generator to prevent the machines’ backup systems from draining. So, the only issue was a dim Brown Gym.
“[The voting machines] weren’t down,” Degan said. “Nothing went down besides the lights.”
Degan added that residents still should feel comfortable voting at any time. The polls are to remain open until 8 p.m.
“We have backups hard-wired into our systems,” he said. “We are all set in case of this contingency.”
Degan said he was informed by Eversource that the cause of the outage was a blown transformer on Ash Street. An email from Eversource to affected residents estimated power would be restored by 10 a.m.
UPDATE: According to an email from Eversource, power was restored at 8:39 a.m. The email indicated 717 customers were impacted, and the problem was caused by “damage to our electrical equipment.” An Eversource representative later clarified that it was a faulty switch.
Voters wait for the polls to open at Hopkinton Middle School on Tuesday morning. PHOTO/JOHN CARDILLO
Crews set up a generator outside Hopkinton Middle School on Tuesday morning to help with the power outage. PHOTO/JOHN CARDILLO
0 Comments