TAMPA -- As vote tallies poured forth from several other counties, Hillsborough results have trickled out slowly in the most watched election in living memory.

Hillsborough Commissioner Kevin White, a member of the county canvassing board, said at 10:45 p.m. that the county's scanning machines were having a transmission problem sending in their results to the Election Services Center. White said the county is going to have to physically bring in about 125 of the machines so their totals can be obtained. That process could take 90 minutes after they are brought into the building, he said.

And there are about 16 machines at the center that have not had their totals uploaded, White said.

Thirty minutes later, Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson made a five-minute statement to reporters about the how the day had gone.

"It's been a beautiful day for Hillsborough County,'' he said. ""I can't tell you how happy and proud I am of this office.''

Johnson seemed to blame Premier Election Solutions, the vendor the county hired to scan the votes, for the problems tonight. He said the company was writing a statement about what happened.

He said, however, that he's satisfied with Premier and said the issues with reporting speed were not major. He said he intends to keep Premier on and gave no signal that he would revisit the contract. 

He then refused to take questions.

Earlier tonight, Kathy Harris, general counsel for Johnson, said there had been no technical problem, but there are still precincts open.

"I will talk to my technical people, but I don't get a sense of it taking a long time,'' she said.

When asked by reporters why Pinellas, Pasco and other highly populated counties were nearly done reporting their results, and HIllsborough had only posted abouit 20 percent of the vote, she shot back, "what's a long time to you?''

"We think we're doing a good job,'' she said.

Harrison's statement to the press contradicted a comment made by Canvassing Board member James Dominguez, who attributed the delay to an overwhelmed computer.

"The computer can only handle what it can handle,'' he said. 

-- Janet Zink and Michael Van Sickler, Times staff writers