The 32-page report, released Monday, concluded that the main reason for problems was the electronic poll book (ePollBook) software used by the independent Denver Election Commission (DEC) to oversee voting. The e-poll book software -- an US$85,000 custom application created by Oakland, Calif.-based Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. -- included the names, addresses and other information for all registered voters in Denver.

Sequoia was already a voting services vendor to the city and county, and the application was designed to allow poll workers across the Denver area to check off voters as they came in to vote at newly created voting centers. Denver has moved from the old precinct-style polling places to a new "voting center" model where voters can go to any polling place in the area to cast ballots, regardless of where they live. The software was supposed to make it easy for officials at any voting center to check online and make sure a voter had not already voted somewhere else in Denver.

Instead, it led to massive problems on Election Day due to "decidedly subprofessional architecture and construction," according to the report from consultants Fred Hessler and Matt Smith at Fujitsu Consulting in Greenwood Village, Colo. Fujitsu was hired by Denver shortly after the election to find out what went wrong and help to fix the problems.

"The ePollBook is a poorly designed and fundamentally flawed application that demonstrates little familiarity with basic tenets of Web development," the report stated. "Due to unnecessary and progressive consumption of system resources, the application's performance will gradually degrade in a limited-use environment and will be immediately and noticeably hampered with a high number of concurrent users."