System Voice pop-up menu Un-selectable

Hi,

When following the instructions for "Change the voice your Mac uses to speak text" from the macOS User Guide, the System Voice pop-up menu at Step 2. is un-selectable (as shown below)

We have tried updating software to most current and reboot to no avail.

The pop-up menu will say loading voices for a few seconds and then stay gray and un-selectable.

Spoken content works, but it plays a low quality default male voice.