The presidential general election vote count in Shelby County was delayed by “a combination of technical and human errors,” according to Shelby County Elections Administrator Linda Phillips.

The problems on Thursday, Nov. 8, included conflicting numbers in matching up the count of absentee ballot affidavits and the absentee ballots. And the vote count was postponed in the early morning hours of Wednesday with approval from the Tennessee Coordinator of Elections.

The Shelby County Election Commission completed tabulating the results of the Tuesday, Nov. 8, elections on Thursday afternoon with the provisional ballot count to be completed sometime Friday, Phillips said in a written statement Thursday evening.

Provisional ballot totals normally do not show up in vote totals until the audited results are presented to the election commission for certification.

The first election returns in Shelby County were not posted to the public Tuesday until 10:25 a.m., more than three hours after the polls closed, despite plans to begin counting the early and absentee votes at 9 that morning.

The first count of absentee ballots showed results were off by more than 100, according to Phillips and a second count on election night was off by 86.

An optical scanner reader didn’t tally two batches of the paper absentee ballots into the computer system and a final batch of 14 affidavits wasn’t reflected in what should have been an updated total.

“If the count had been off by an even 100, the problem would have been obvious to me,” Phillips said in the written statement. “But because the number of affidavits was less than the number listed on the report of the ballots by 84, it required a hand count of all affidavits.”

That, according to Phillips, is what slowed the election night count and prompted the staff to call it a day at 2:30 the next morning.

The absentee counting board returned Wednesday afternoon and 14 extra affidavits were found, which was the human error part of the problem Phillips referred to.

“It’s so unfortunate that this happened,” she said. “We know voters were eager to receive the completed numbers, but we could not, in good conscience, release figures that were not absolutely accurate.”

The Election Commission meets Nov. 28 to certify the results.