"We were not made aware of the software shortcoming," Bucher said.

She issued after the election by a Waldeep Singh, vice president of customer relations at Dominion, which blamed the problem on "a mismatch between the software which generates the paper ballots and the central tally system.

"This synchronization difficulty is a shortcoming of the version of software currently being used in Palm Beach County and that shortcoming has been addressed in a subsequent version of the software," the statement said.

In a later letter sent to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, Dominion president John Poulos appeared to backpedal from Singh's statement.

Poulos maintained that the company's software had functioned precisely as designed and contended that the precise reason for the mismatch remains unknown.