(La Porte County, IN) - Voting machines jamming is blamed for not having all of the votes in La Porte County counted until the early morning hours today.

La Porte County Clerk Heather Stevens said each machine has a roll of paper that serves as a back-up to the electronic votes cast, but the paper kept getting jammed in many of the machines.

“They jammed everywhere.  The machines won’t work without them,” she said.

Stevens said there were problems with the paper jamming in some of the machines during test runs prior to the election.  It was a problem she kept having to address during the early voting period but the troubles magnified on Election Day.

“Today was on such a level that we never imagined,” she said.

The machines were obtained through Microvote General Corp., which worked with Stevens throughout the ordeal.  The final tallies were released just after 4:30 a.m.