Fran Green, Bradley County Elections Director, center, works with other members of the election commission to prepare for upcoming races while at the Bradley County Election Commission in Cleveland, Tenn., in this file photo.A computer malfunction left Polk County, Tenn., residents waiting until almost Wednesday for their Super Tuesday election results.
Computers at the county election commission wouldn't read memory cards from the voting machines, officials said, and it wasn't until about midnight that the problem was solved.
"Such an itty-bitty thing caused such a big problem," said Roger Baird, president of Harp Enterprises, which created the vote-tabulating software used by Polk.
"You know how computers are these days. Things like this happen, and you're just left scratching your head," he said.
A Harp Enterprises technician stationed in Loudon County, Tenn., drove to Polk County with the parts needed to fix the problem, Baird said.
After polls close, the Harp program prints out a tally of votes cast that day. Votes cast during the early voting period are tabulated differently and not shown on the paper printouts.
On Tuesday, the problem left 936 early votes unaccounted for, so any results announced beforehand were unofficial, said Steve Gaddis, administrator for the Polk County Election Commission.
Gaddis said he was stuck in the office Tuesday night until about midnight.
"It was stressful, but we all performed well and had other paperwork to work on while we waited," he said. "We weren't just standing around."
Roy Thomason, who defeated Harold Hood for the job of Polk County road superintendent in a 973-530 vote, showed up at the election commission office about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday and was there for about two hours while they waited for the technician to arrive.
"It was an unforeseen setback, but things happen," he said. "I feel like they dealt with it well."
Harp Enterprises is looking at options to avoid similar issues in the future, Baird said.
Similarly, a machine malfunction delayed results in Bradley County, Tenn. Elections Director Fran Green had to dismantle a machine to retrieve a memory card, officials said.
The recorded votes then were run off on paper ballots.
In all, 11,077 voters cast ballots in Bradley, with 6,132 cast on Super Tuesday and 4,945 cast during early voting, elections officials said.
Staff writer Randall Higgins contributed to this story.