Technical glitches delay election results

Despite the use of new electronic machines by voters, the biggest technical glitches during Tuesday's primary elections came after the polls closed.

Throughout the night, the state's elections results Web site, www.electionresults.utah.gov, suffered from technical glitches that included delayed results and slow loading. Some county clerk Web sites also suffered from delayed updates of their election tabulations.

Joe Demma, the chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, who oversees elections in the state, said that the problems were a combination of new voting equipment, a redesigned Web site, and unexpected interest from around the world in the 3rd District Republican primary between Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, and John Jacob.

"People from as far away as China and thousands on the East Coast" wanted 3rd District results, and that proved at times to be too much traffic for the state's server to handle.

Compounding problems was that the technical staff for the state elections office was already swamped with incoming reports from counties, which they had to check for accuracy, and providing support for county clerk's counting the votes, Demma said.

"I'm dealing with a 10 person staff who is dealing with everything" related to the new voting systems, which made their statewide debut Tuesday, he said. "There is a lot we're doing, so there will be some hiccups. But the lieutenant governor recognizes that there were problems, and he will see that they get fixed."

To prepare for the November general election, when turnout will be much higher, the state will attempt to bring together county clerks, computer technicians and representatives from Diebold Elections Systems, which manufactures and maintains the new voting machines. Together, Demma said, they will look at any problems and "try to do what is in the best interest of the people."

In Salt Lake County, results were running 15 to 20 minutes behind the actual vote count, something that has not happened during recent elections. The main reason for the delays, said Chief Deputy Clerk Jason Yocom, was that for security reasons the Global Elections Management server, which counts the votes, was not connected to the Web server as it has been in the past.

Instead, an election worker would have to burn a CD of the most recent results every 15 minutes and then upload it to the Web site.

"For the security of the system, we decided it was best to keep the G.E.M. server and Web site separate," he said. As for the November election, "this was a completely new system, so there will be some tweaks after we used it the first time. But they will be minor adjustments."