Website issue delays reporting of El Paso County election results
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- It took nearly two hours for the largest county in Colorado to report its first round of election results on Tuesday, and the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder's Office says the blame is with the Secretary of State's Election Night Reporting system.
The first results for El Paso County weren't reported to the state's election results portal until close to 9 p.m., but the county had early results as of about 7:10 p.m., the clerk's office tells KRDO.
The issue came about because of a discrepancy between the Secretary of State's website and the El Paso County Clerk's numbers for total ballot cards cast. When the clerk's office caught the discrepancy, staffers immediately started investigating to verify the numbers, according to a spokesperson for the clerk's office.
There weren't any issues with the official counting, according to the clerk's office. A copy of the early results obtained by KRDO was in line with the results that were eventually reported to the Secretary of State's website.
"It is of the utmost importance that any results reported by the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office are 100% accurate," said a statement from the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder's Office. "The Election staff and bipartisan canvass board reviewed and approved all results by verifying the accuracy twice before publishing. The delay in results was due to an abundance of caution and we are confident our safeguards work."
A spokesperson with the clerk's office says the Secretary of State's Office is investigating what led to the discrepancy with the reporting.