Why Cook County vote count delayed again

A technical glitch again slowed the reporting of votes in suburban Cook County this election, but officials said they avoided the major problems that plagued the system in the past.

Early in the evening Tuesday, anxious vote counters were frustrated by Cook County results that were frozen at 17 percent of precincts counted.

The votes were sent from transmission stations in the suburbs to the Cook County clerk's downtown headquarters, but election officials said there was a problem getting the system to spit out the information.

After the glitch was fixed, the county said it posted 87 percent of precincts by 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Chicago Board of Elections reported posting 80 percent of results by 10 p.m.

Slow vote tabulation had become an issue in the 2006 primary election, when half the votes in the city and county were delayed by faulty transmissions. The problems recurred at the county level in the following general election, prompting then-county board chairman candidate Tony Peraica to storm the county building and demand answers.

A blue-ribbon panel investigated and blamed both the county clerk and the company providing the voting machinery and consulting, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland, Calif.

This time around, while the transmission problems were largely eliminated, the problem that prevented tabulating the votes will be investigated, said Ed Smith of Sequoia.

The county clerk's office, which handles suburban voting, took until after 10 a.m. Wednesday to post vote totals from 100 percent of its precincts. The Chicago Board of Elections, which handles the city, was still reporting 98 percent of precincts Wednesday.

By contrast, some counties, such as Lake County, had reported all voting in certain races by about 9 p.m. on election night.

In a county the size of Cook, with a high turnout, officials say it's almost impossible to immediately account for every vote.

Turnout for the election was high, with more than 2 million ballots cast in the suburbs and the city - 72 percent of registered voters - though that wasn't near the turnouts of 1992 in the suburbs or 1944 in the city.

Officials blamed the last few uncounted precincts on isolated snafus like malfunctioning voting tabulation or judges who forgot to download touch-screen cartridges.

"We're fine," Chicago Board of Elections spokesman Jim Allen said. "We had our act together."

One race, the 13th judicial subcircuit contest between Republican Annie O'Donnell of Palatine and Democrat Ann Catherine Brady of Schaumburg, was close enough that it might be subject to a partial recount, county clerk spokeswoman Courtney Greve said. O'Donnell appeared to be leading with just over 50 percent of the vote.

In this election, former Peraica spokesman Dan Proft said, the major problems appear to have been resolved, and most of the victories were big enough that the last few precincts didn't matter.

Daily Herald Staff Writer Steve Zalusky contributed to this report.