PARKERSBURG - Wood County experienced more than its share of election day hiccups Tuesday, but most outlying counties reported few or no issues with voter tallies.
The Wood County Clerk's office reported some issues Tuesday evening while tallying the results of the election.
Wood County's final precinct reported to the clerk's office at 9:15 p.m., but the online tallies froze at around 8:30 p.m., with the results of only 30 of 84 precincts showing. The percentages for those tallies likewise were in error, officials said.
The results began being updated again around 9:23 p.m.
Wood County Commissioner Blair Couch said the delay in the totals from the county was due to a glitch in the vote tabulation system.
"We have a programming error where the votes are counting, but the column for the number of registered voters voting is still as zero," he said. "We are working to correct it now rather than waiting until the morning."
"We have the correct number of votes, but the percentages are not."
The final tallies were made available around 9:32 p.m.
Wood County Clerk Jamie Six said a few other hiccups in the process were noticed early Tuesday but dealt with quickly. Six said seven Wood County poll workers called off Tuesday morning, but replacement workers were in place by the time the polls opened at 6:30 a.m. A few polling places also reported improperly installed paper rolls in several machines, but those problems were quickly corrected.
"We caught that early on. That does not affect the vote count at all," Six said, "only the paper voting trail."
Six said a fire alarm went off around 1:10 p.m. at Jefferson Elementary Center, causing two voting precincts to be evacuated. Parkersburg fire officials investigated and gave the all-clear, with polling resuming about 15 minutes later, he said.
Tuesday's election day was "not the smoothest compared to the history I've had here, but it hasn't been bad either," Six said, adding voter turnout seemed to be steady throughout the day.
Wirt County reported some minor issues, such as jammed machines and a dead battery, both of which officials said were easily corrected.
Doddridge County's results were delayed until after 10:30 p.m. due to an error in closing out one of its precincts.
Harrison County reported a jammed optical scanner, which delayed the county's ability for hoursto tally and report votes.
Most other outlying counties reported no issues with voting or tallying the votes, and several counties, including Pleasants and Calhoun, had results before or shortly after 9 p.m.
Roane, Ritchie, Tyler, Jackson, Gilmer and Calhoun also reported no issues. Officials with the Pleasants County Clerk's office said the election and tallies went "smooth."
