Counting provisional and absentee ballots held up Florida's tally in the 2012 election, an elections supervisor told msnbc Saturday. Florida's 29 electoral votes were called for President Obama Saturday, four days after the election was decided.
Jerry Holland, the Republican supervisor of Duval County, Fla., said that election day ballots were all accounted by 11:10 p.m. Tuesday, but that other ballots took longer to process.
"It's the closeness of this race that really brought upon counting every vote," Holland said to msnbc host Craig Melvin Saturday.
In response to Melvin's question about why 49 other states managed to get their voting tallies in on time but Florida was held up yet again, Holland said the counts had to be thorough.
"Being fast and being wrong is not a good plan for everyone," he said. "We're still counting military votes."
Holland suggested that expanding the number of government buildings where residents can vote and updating antiquated paper check-ins will go a long way to making voting in the state more efficient.