The Nov. 2 election was conducted with no major problems reported anywhere in the State of Tennessee, according to the Division of Elections.

“I commend not only our staff at the state Division of Elections, but also county election officials across Tennessee for running such a smooth election,” Secretary of State Tre Hargett said. “It has been said that the best-officiated sporting events are the ones in which people don’t even notice that the referees are there. I think a similar analogy works for elections – and so I am glad people spent Tuesday night talking about the election’s results rather than problems at the polls.”

Election results for all 95 counties were listed on the Department of State web site shortly after midnight Wednesday – an unusually fast response time for a statewide election.

“When I took office, one of my first questions was why the Department of State had not been able to offer the citizens of Tennessee a centralized location where they could view the most up-to-date election results,” Secretary Hargett said. “I am pleased that we were able to provide that service on our web site. From the feedback I have received, I believe many observers of Tennessee politics want to have that information at their fingertips as soon as possible after the polls close on election nights.”

Three divisions within the Department of State – Publications, Information Systems and Elections – were all heavily involved in developing the web application that allowed results to be posted online quickly after they were received from county election officials. The project was done in partnership with the administration’s Office for Information Resources. No taxpayer funds were spent to purchase additional equipment to provide the upgraded service.

“I am so proud of the work done by our employees within the Department of State and I am thankful to Gov. Bredesen for volunteering the assistance of his staff within the Office for Information Resources,” Secretary Hargett said. “This truly was a team effort. When we attempted to offer this service following the August election, we ran into some technological issues due to the high volume of traffic on our web site. However, rather than getting discouraged, our people rose to the challenge and overcame those issues.”