Montgomery County election officials say they probably will not provide results from the Sept. 12 primary before midnight.
Security and technology issues involved with electronic touch-screen voting machines — which will be used statewide for the first time next month — will slow the gathering of counted votes from the county’s 238 precincts, they said.
“The election results will be late, maybe by midnight,” said Nancy H. Dacek, president of the Montgomery County Board of Elections.
Montgomery County, which has more precincts than any other jurisdiction in Maryland, is the only county in the state known to be expecting late results.
Baltimore city will use the touch-screen machines for the first time next month. Election administrative aide Hanan Fleming said she expects to report results quicker than in the past after polls close at 8 p.m.
“This is the first time we’ve had the touch-screens,” Mrs. Fleming said. “Nothing will be reported before the polls close. Then, we’ll report them as they come in.”
Mrs. Dacek said the encryption of data lengthens download and transmission times.
“It’s going to take 10 minutes instead of 10 seconds,” she said. “They have put further encryptions in.”
Mrs. Dacek said it will take longer to assemble all the votes from the county’s precincts. She said officials of one-third of the precincts, which are the largest, will drive the modem disks with total precinct counts to the elections board office in Rockville.
Mrs. Dacek also said the vote numbers will not be released until all precinct results have been collected and tabulated. Before, partial results were released soon after each precinct reported them.
“Earliest results won’t be released until all are done,” she said. “It’s to ensure safe and secure elections.”
The touch-screen machines and the modems throughout the precincts in Maryland may slow some of the counting process, said Ross K. Goldstein, deputy administrator of the Maryland State Board of Elections, but the final results should be available more quickly.
“As a security measure, the results will be slower than in the past,” said Mr. Goldstein, explaining that encryptions are codes, like keys.
“It will cause a little bit of delay, but there is a need for the security,” he said.
Prince George’s County was one of the first election boards in the state to use the touch-screen machines for its 206 precincts in 2002.
County Elections Administrator Robert J. Antonetti Sr. anticipates some slowdown because the machines are “still new,” but he expects total results to be announced “well before midnight; maybe by 10:30.”
Despite the encryption, he said, “It takes less than a minute to report.”
Baltimore County used the touch-screen machines in 2004, said Jacqueline K. McDaniel, the county’s election board director, and “it wasn’t any quicker, but they were new. When you do anything new, it takes time to learn how to handle.”
Howard County began using touch-screen machines in 2004, and did not report any problems. Officials there expect no trouble this year, said Leo Kowalczyk of the county’s Board of Elections in Ellicott City.
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