St. Louis County election officials are defending the new optical scan voting machines in the wake of some Election Day vote counting delays that stretched into Wednesday afternoon. John Diehl, Chairman of the St. Louis County Board of Elections, says nobody experienced any trouble during the actual voting process. Diehl says about a dozen of the approximately 450 polling locations were not shut down accoding to strict procedures. The electronic ballots, which were kept at election headquarters overnight, had to be validated. Diehl insists the process was not compromised in any way. St. Louis County is the largest voting jurisdiction in the state with about 450 polling stations and 3,000 poll workers.

Related web sites:
Secretary of State’s Election Returns Page