Flower Mound voting results delayed by hours
County's electronic machines didn't give totals for town races
May 15, 2007. The Dallas Morning News. From Staff Reports

Flower Mound election officials did not return electronic voting machines until after 11 p.m. Saturday, causing a long delay in results being reported for municipal and school board elections, Denton County Election Administrator Don Alexander said.

Flower Mound Town Secretary Paula Paschal said the delay stemmed from the state constitutional amendment on the ballot.

Flower Mound is one voting precinct, but there are also 20 county precincts in town, Ms. Paschal said. The county's voting machines were programmed to print the totals by precinct because of the amendment, but it didn't give totals for Flower Mound's two council races, two alcohol propositions and 10 charter amendments.

"We had to go through each precinct and take the numbers for and against the constitutional amendment and the numbers for [everything else] ...and put it in a spreadsheet," she said.

If the amendment hadn't been on the ballot, the town would have had no problem tallying results, she said. Ms. Paschal said Saturday night was hectic.

"We had two tapes the length of the council chamber," she said. "And it was huge, and it was awful. It's just one of those things you learn on election day."

Mr. Alexander said he called Flower Mound officials several times through the night, asking about the results. They told him the last person voted at 7:15 p.m., he said.

Mr. Alexander said his office could have put together the spreadsheet needed for the Flower Mound results.

But by the time Mr. Alexander reported the Flower Mound results back to the town at 11:05 p.m., he had sent home the man who was posting those results to the Web site.

"That was my fault on the Web," Mr. Alexander said. "But if they had brought in those machines on a normal schedule, it wouldn't have been a problem."