Florida's Palm Beach County's decade-old ballot-counting machines overheated and gave incorrect totals, forcing the county to lose more than a day of work and restart its recount of about 175,000 early votes, supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher announced, the Miami Herald reported.
"We're disappointed by the mechanical problems that are going to cause a further delay in the recount," Bucher said. "It became evident through the vigorous pace of counting that the machines used for the recount were starting to get stressed."
She said two technicians were flown in to work on the problem while election office workers staff the recount, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
Bucher had already said Monday her office could not meet Thursday's 3 p.m. ET deadline imposed by the state after mandatory recounts were triggered because the results in elections for U.S. Senate, governor, and agriculture commissioner were all under the 0.5 percentage point threshold stated in state law.
The case for deadline extension in Palm Beach County was moved to federal court Tuesday after a motion by attorneys for Secretary of State Ken Detzner.
The developments added to the turmoil in the swing state, according to Fox News.
State officials said they could not recall any other time a race for governor or a U.S. Senate seat required a recount, let alone both in the same election.
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