Town hall glitch blamed on server

More people than expected called in

By Bill Salisbury
bsalisbury@pioneerpress.com
Updated: 08/26/2009

Some Minnesotans who registered for Sen. Amy Klobuchar's Sunday night teleconference on health care were left out of the call and, boy, are they mad.

Sixteen of them contacted a Pioneer Press reporter to complain. Most of those said they either never received their expected call or they got a recorded message from Klobuchar saying she was sorry they missed her call.

That aroused suspicions.

"I think they weeded me out," Roy of Shoreview said in a voice mail.

Klobuchar spokesman Linden Zakula said Tuesday that a server failure at the teleconference service caused the glitch.

"We had more people on than we expected," he said. Klobuchar said she received 10,200 registrations.

Zakula said a "few dozen people" called Klobuchar's office to complain about being excluded from the call. Her staff e-mailed those people an electronic link to an audio recording of the teleconference, he said.

Zakula added that Klobuchar's staff is taking steps to prevent similar problems in the future. "We want to make this better for the next time," he said.

Klobuchar has not scheduled any more teleconferences.