Monroe County’s two Board of Elections Commissioners say it was a “connectivity issue” that prevented them from reporting election results in a timely manner Tuesday night.
Republican Lisa Nicolay and Democrat Jackie Ortiz said in a news conference that the computer network which receives and processes the votes essentially lost its ability to communicate with the network that displays the results on the board’s public website. Candidates, journalists and anyone interested use that website on election night to find out what’s going on.
Nicolay and Ortiz said at no time was there a problem with collecting and tabulating the votes. They said the problem began with the vast amount of data being pushed through the system, which caused it to slow down. Nicolay said this year absentee ballots and the early voting results were supposed to be added in on election night with the results from the voting machines under a new state law. Monroe County’s system wasn’t able to handle the extra throughput without slowing down.
Ortiz said they tested the system before election night, but could not test for the amount of data they actually had to handle. Both commissioners say the State Board of Elections should approve new equipment and procedures for local elections boards.