Computer glitch causes delay in posting the Vermilion Parish election results

On a typical election night, everyone at the Vermilion Parish Clerk of Court’s Office is finished sending the election results to the Secretary of State’s Office by 9:30 p.m. But that was not the case this past Saturday.
Vermilion Parish was the last parish in the state to finish submitting the election results. It was just after midnight on Sunday by the time everyone finished.

So, what happened?

Vermilion Parish Clerk of Court Diane Meaux Broussard said everything was going well with submitting the results to the Secretary of State’s Office.
The results of the Pecan Island precinct, the furthest voting district from Abbeville, were in the clerk of court’s office by 9:30 p.m.
Vermilion Parish had 142 cartridges holding the results of the election and were being uploaded to the Secretary of State’s website throughout the evening. Then, 19 of those cartridges failed to upload. After troubleshooting, it was determined by a Secretary of State staff member that the results from these 19 cartridges would have to be entered manually by the Vermilion Parish Clerk of Court’s office.
The clerk’s office used the paper results from the voting machines to manually input the results from the 19 voting machines.
The ballots were long and included not only Vermilion Parish candidates, but state candidates and four constitutional amendments, as well. The process took two hours, and when it was completed, Vermilion Parish was the final parish to finish.
On a night when Broussard should have celebrated her clerk of court victory, she had to deal with computer issues.
“These voting machines are 35 years old,” said Broussard. “The cartridges would not read.
“I was disappointed. This was the first time this had happened to me in my 20 years as the clerk of court. We could have been out of there at 10, but it was not until midnight. Technology did not work that night.”
Two members of the secretary of state’s office helped input the results by hand.
Broussard and her staff, along with The Secretary of State’s Commissioner of Elections, spent Sunday reviewing the cartridges that failed to upload.
By the time the runoff election will take place on Nov. 18, these cartridges will be replaced by the Secretary of State, Broussard said.
Broussard thanked her staff for professionally handling the computer clinch.