Detroit's primary election results were delayed due to firewall issues

Primary election results Tuesday night in Detroit were delayed because of a faulty firewall, causing election workers to drive the results across Wayne County, in which the city is located.

The firewall issues prevented local clerks from electronically submitting the results, so the clerks had to physically transport the results to downtown Detroit, said the county clerk's office, according to NBC News.

The results started began posting online well after midnight.

Most of the results would have been ready around 11 p.m. Tuesday if the technical issue hadn't occurred, said Daniel Baxter, an aide in the Detroit City Clerk's office. A batch of about 10,000 mail ballots dropped off on Election Day were not fully counted until 6 a.m. the following morning.

“What we focus on now – more so than any other time – is accuracy,” Baxter said. “Certainly we want to be as timely as possible, but we also want to produce a quality product, so we take our time to make sure that every ballot is accounted for.”

“We will continue to work with local officials to identify additional ways to speed up the process, but we will never do so at the expense of making sure the count is accurate,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s director of communications, Angela Benander.