Auditors explain election result delays

By on Thursday, November 10th, 2022 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories

Auditors in Franklin and Walla Walla counties said the delay in Tuesday night’s election results being posted on the secretary of state’s website was all due to the state’s upload process.

“I don’t know all the technical issues around it, but they had to re-map the program that uploads the results, and then we had to reload our results,” Walla Walla County Auditor Karen Martin said.

Martin explained that until the Office of the Secretary of State verifies the data from a PDF the local office sends them, there is a delay in results getting posted to the website.

“We were on the phone with the state and also had a secretary of state representative here at the office working on the issue,” she added.

Franklin County Auditor Matt Beaton acknowledged the upload to the state did take a little longer due to the data volume going into the state from all 39 counties, but results were posted immediately on the county’s website in PDF form.

While both Franklin and Walla Walla counties have been successful in the past getting results uploaded, it took both counties a little over an hour Tuesday night to post live results on the secretary of state’s website.