CLEVELAND - Vote totals couldn't be pulled from memory cards of some electronic voting machines used in a special election, forcing poll workers to transport the machines to Cuyahoga County's election headquarters for results to be counted.

Elections officials read the results off the machines' built-in flash memory and none of Tuesday's votes were lost, elections board director Michael Vu said Wednesday.

"Everything has been accounted for," he said.

Elections officials have not determined why the memory cards from 12 of the 33 voting machines in suburban Independence could not be read Tuesday night.

The problem happened the same day the elections board announced Vu had resigned effective March 1. Under Vu, the state's most populous county had a botched primary election and saw the convictions of two workers who mishandled the 2004 presidential recount.

After memory card readers that the county bought last year from Diebold Election Systems didn't read the votes Tuesday, officials tried but failed to download the data using voting machines at election headquarters, Vu said.

Poll workers then drove the machines to the downtown headquarters in vans. Officials read votes off the memory, which duplicates what's on the cards, Vu said.

Tallies match printouts poll workers generated at the close of voting.

The card readers were being used for the first time, but had been tested, Vu said. The problem could have been caused by the cards, the readers or election staff, he said.

Diebold spokesman Mark Radke said the problem was likely a "procedural issue" considering this was the county's first election using the card readers.

"There's liable to be a learning curve associated with them," he said.

Last May, in the county's first attempt at electronic voting, primary results were delayed six days because of problems that included poll workers who were not prepared to operate voting machines or didn't show up to work, and memory cards that were misplaced or lost.