Vote data could not be transferred from 24 of the 26 data cartridges to the readers that would transmit the totals to the central office to be tallied. Precinct totals were faxed over and entered by hand.*

Technicians are examining the computer hardware to see whether they can isolate the glitch.

"As of today, we still have not pinpointed the problem," Elections Supervisor Pam Iorio said Friday. "We have had three Sequoia employees looking at it, but they have not gotten to the bottom of it."

[Sequoia project manager Mike ] Frontera and two helpers replicated the problem Thursday, watching a laptop computer freeze when a cartridge was prematurely pulled from a reader.