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Wednesday, June 7, 2006 8:23 AM CDT
Computer glitches slow county election returns
By PAT KINNEY, Courier Business Editor


WATERLOO --- Computer glitches uploading election returns at the Black Hawk County Courthouse delayed the outcome of the Democratic U.S. 1st District Congressional race Tuesday night.

Delays in uploading the returns made the tight race a little more suspenseful as politicos around the district awaited the outcome of outstanding precincts in Black Hawk County, delaying results until after midnight. The county came in heavily for native son Bruce Braley, a Waterloo attorney, and he won the race by about 850 votes over his nearest opponent, Rick Dickinson.

Black Hawk had two separate tabulation systems for the two different types of voting machines used --- the computer-scan paper ballot machines and the new touch screen machines, required under the federal Help America Vote Act.

The returns flowed in steadily about 30 minutes after the polls closed, but the county hit a snag in its ability to upload computer cards containing election results about halfway into the counting.

Telephone line problems also hindered election officials' ability to load those results from the polling sites. A contingent of about 20 volunteers, helping polling place workers throughout the day, retrieved many of the returns and delivered them to the Election Office to be uploaded there.

"It's no problem with the votes. I want to make sure people understand that," County Auditor Grant Veeder said. "It's just communicating the results to the computer. If we wanted to, we could have taken everybody's (printed) tapes and added up their results, but I doubt that would have gotten us out of here any quicker."

The problems occurred with both kinds of voting machines, county elections manager Kyle Jensson said.

Jensson said the county had done successful separate trial tests uploading results with each system but not all at once. "Here's where we got caught," Jensson said. "Tonight we had all 12 (computer) modems on at the same time, and a specific (computer) setting said we only had licensing for eight (modems) so it was knocking us out. We had enough upload capacity, but the system for accepting it was not there."

The glitch also resulted in an incorrect number of precincts reporting as the returns came in, though the vote numbers were accurate.

County staff worked with Diebold Election Systems, which supplied the touch screen machines, to fix the problem, Jensson said.

Election officials indicated that roughly 16 percent of county residents who voted in Tuesday's primary tried the new touch screen machines, tailored to individuals with disabilities but available to all voters.

Unofficially, 10,619 Black Hawk County residents voted in Tuesday's primary, only 12.9 percent of the county's 82,300 registered voters. Turnout for the 2002 primary was about 17 percent. Veeder had projected a 15 percent turnout at midafternoon.

Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com.
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