Two Arizona counties struggle with voting glitches in primary
Aug 26, 2014, 10:52 PM | Updated: Aug 27, 2014, 12:58 pm
PHOENIX — Technology could have been kinder to Yavapai and Cochise county officials on election night.
Technical issues prevented staff from updating the election sites in a timely manner. Yavapai’s official election page had reported no results Tuesday as of 10:40 p.m. Cochise County posted incorrect results.
The Secretary of State’s Office released a statement Wednesday explaining the Yavapai delay.
During Primary Election Night Reporting, Yavapai County, working with new election equipment, experienced technical difficulties properly exporting the results file out of its system. It took until nearly 6 a.m. this morning for the county’s new system to export a results file. Once Yavapai was able to export the file, that data was successfully uploaded into the state election night reporting system without difficulty.
Shortly before 2:30 a.m., results from 97 percent of the Yavapai precincts were online at the elections site.
In the interim, the county released unofficial results just before 9 p.m.
Yavapai county contains the cities of Prescott and portions of Sedona, two of Arizona’s larger cities outside of Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff.
Wednesday morning, Cochise County’s election site said it experienced “technical difficulties with (Tuesday)’s tabulation of ballots.” The original results were removed. It is unknown when new results would be posted, though the county said they are “forthcoming.”
Both counties are part of the state’s 1st Congressional District, host of a hotly-contested race between three Republican candidates and 10th-largest district in the nation.
Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin took Yavapai County with 50 percent of the vote, beating Adam Kwasman and Gary Kiehne.
State Sen. Chester Crandell, who died in a horse-riding accident early this month, pulled in 4,552 votes in Yavapai County.