Single server in Cheney overwhelmed with election data

OLYMPIA — A software glitch confounded election watchers during the “top two” primary, causing the secretary of state’s website to crash when results began pouring in. State elections officials say a programming error accidentally sent most of the Web traffic to just one of the state’s six servers at the digital archives in Cheney. While the other five sat essentially idle, the overload slowed and then overwhelmed that single server. State officials are working with experts from Microsoft to fix the problem before November’s general election, said David Ammons, the spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed. Ammons also notes that Tuesday’s 12,000 contests for political party precinct committee officers won’t be on the general election ballot.