Kootenai, we have a problem

Election officials are trying to solve a technical glitch that at best has delayed the counting of ballots, and at worst will force elections staff to start counting all over again.

At 3:30 this morning, Pat Raffee of the Elections Department confirmed that somehow, the number of counted ballots posted on the county's website decreased when five additional precincts were tallied shortly after 2 a.m. In other words, more votes were counted but the total number somehow shrank.

"That's a problem," she noted.

She said the county's technical people were on the phone with national technical people in hopes that the problem would be discovered and a remedy implemented. But if not, she said, they'd simply start counting all over.