Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Thursday that there were limitations to an election system used in Pueblo County Tuesday that officials were not aware of at the time they purchased the equipment. Counting of all mail in-ballots was expected to be completed at about 10:30 p.m. on Election Day, but a computer server hit its capacity early that day, forcing Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder Gilbert “Bo” Ortiz to call the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, which provided a larger server. During a Thursday press conference in Colorado Springs, Williams repeated what Ortiz has been saying since the problem began. He told reporters that the size of Pueblo County’s four page ballot caused large scan files to clog the server. Williams said the server software (Microsoft SQL Express) was insufficient to handle the size. “The new (Pueblo County) system uses a scan of the entire ballot so judges quickly can adjudicate (ballots in) any race that might be in question,” Williams said.
“The vendor has provided a new server and a back-up server that is a higher-capacity server and addresses the needs that Pueblo has,” Williams said. He said the new servers were provided at no additional cost to Pueblo County.
“The upgraded server uses SQL as opposed to SQL Express,” Williams said.
Complications in transferring data to the new server put Ortiz’s office back about eight hours Tuesday, and his staff and elections judges have been working ballots since the system was back up and running at 11:20 p.m. later that night.
Full Article: Cause of Colorado’s Election Delays Explained.