Raffee explains election results delay

The county elections office reports that by-precinct and write-in results are now posted to the county's website: www.kcgov.us/elections/

As for the elections results reporting delay that occurred Tuesday night, Kootenai County Chief Deputy Clerk Pat Raffee said, in a press release: "Our ballot tabulator worked fine. The reporting software program seems to have a glitch about how many precincts were in the tally – it kept showing all 70 Election-day precincts reporting, even though about 10 precincts’ results were being uploaded at a time.”

Just before midnight, the county reports that its elections management team saw those incremental results contained accurate vote totals but inaccurate precinct counts. 

“Knowing most people were expecting the total results by midnight, we decided not to post until all 70 Election-day precincts were in fact contained in the total results,” Raffee continued.

The Idaho Secretary of State’s office was contacted and they shared that Ada County was having a similar results reporting challenge. Both counties use the same software vendor.

“I understand a delay of over 2 hours seemed like eternity for people who were tired and anxious for the outcomes. We still feel most folks prefer accuracy over speed,” Raffee said.

The election results are unofficial until the canvass of the votes is presented to the Board of County Commissioners.

“This canvass meeting is scheduled for 2PM Tuesday, May 27, in the Boardroom at the County Admin Building. The public is welcome to attend,” Raffee said.