MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Friday, the Shelby County Election Commission said it was working to figure out what caused a slowdown in the release of election results the night before.
For some, Election Day stretched all the way into Friday morning.
It was just shortly before 11 Thursday night that WREG got our hands on the first paper copies of election results from day-of voters.
Election Commission Chairman Robert Meyers said the slowdown stemmed from a technical issue.
“It has to do with the communication issue between two systems. Beyond that, it’s kind of beyond my technical capabilities to describe,” Meyers said Thursday.
He said the issue did not affect tabulation. It just slowed down the publication of the numbers.
It was an IT problem he was not ready to blame anyone for. Instead, he acknowledged the hiccup reflected poorly on the office.
“Unfortunately, we have had issues in the past and this, again, is a bump or stain on our reputation. Again, we work very hard to try to avoid that,” Meyers said.
That wasn’t the only election night concern.
City Court Clerk candidate and current City Council member, Wanda Halbert, went to the Election Commission herself after she believed it made another flub.
“As they were updating the website, the link, you saw numbers that were associated with one candidate, but somehow those numbers, those same exact numbers, changed names,” Halbert said.
She said the errors were disappointing and enough might have to be enough, referring to past issues with elections.
“Something is happening that needs an additional level of oversight to come in and see what’s happening here, because it’s not a fair process,” Halbert said.
Election Administrator Richard Holden said there’s an investigation underway into why it took the time it did to get results to the public.
Regarding Halbert’s concern, Meyers said some numbers or names did appear to jump around. He said it had to do with software but not tabulation.
