County precincts have trouble filing votes electronically

Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2006

Almost two-thirds of Prince George's County precincts were not able to file election results electronically to the Board of Elections Tuesday night, prolonging the vote count into early Wednesday morning hours.

County election officials had expected to have all the precincts reported by 10 p.m. Tuesday. But, five hours after the polls closed, polling officials arrived at the board of elections office with their precinct results on discs and waited to have their results processed.

‘‘I thought we would be out of here by 10 o’clock too,” said Interim Elections Administrator Robert Antonetti. ‘‘But I guess it just doesn’t go that fast.”

Kyle Cheeves, a technician who had been stationed at the Seat Pleasant Elementary School polling station, said he had trouble saving results to the computer.

The delays capped a day with isolated pockets of problems at polling stations.

‘‘We had a rough opening in 15 precincts, but an easy opening in 191 precincts,” Antonetti said.

Most of the problems were with e-Poll Books, which confirm registration information by entering the information into a computer.

Beltsville Elementary School, for example, reportedly received its e-Poll Books two hours late.