For the second time in two elections, a “technical glitch” stalled the Ouachita Parish Clerk of Court’s Office in completing election returns Saturday night. Over 50 minutes elapsed before election results were updated on the Secretary of State’s website at about 10:15 p.m. At the time, less than 10 precincts remained out across three local elections. Ouachita Parish Clerk of Court Louise Bond said equipment including laptops and readers are brought in from the Secretary of State’s office for the election. “We have a computer that has a reader and sometimes they don’t read, and we had a glitch in it,” she said. Cartridges that register votes from each precinct are brought to the clerk’s office where they are electronically read. Bond said the reader was unable to extract information from a cartridge that came from western Ouachita Parish.
An on-site technician from the Secretary of State’s office was at the clerk’s office at the time of the problem. The technician called and verified the incident with the Baton Rouge office for corrective measures to be taken. A printout of recorded votes was pulled from the cartridge and votes were manually entered into the computer system.
Rapides Parish was also among the last parishes to close out their returns Saturday. Rapides Clerk of Court Robin Hooter said they too experienced a reader issue with one of the cartridges that slowed return information through the Secretary of State’s website.
Full Article: Technology trips election returns, again.