BAY MINETTE, Ala. — A steady stream of Baldwin County voters cast 41,404 ballots Tuesday in the Presidential Preference Primary, but delays in posting results on the Internet resulted in the dismissal of a firm hired by Probate Judge Adrian Johns to package and present results on a Web page.

Johns contracted with Site One to design an “attractive, interactive, easy-to-use format” for the recent Senate elections, but the firm has failed to timely post results for public consumption, Johns said.

“We were paying for a service that didn’t perform as it should have,” the probate judge said. “This was the fourth election with Site One. The first one was fine, but the last three didn’t work well.”

Johns said he is considering returning to a systems data, in-house Web posting which has been in place for a decade to display precinct and summary tallies.

He said he also is considering expanding the services of ES&S, the county’s election supply vendor, to include a Web page that is “attractive, fast and accurate” for displaying voting results.

Dick Scott, Site One president and CEO, said Friday he regretted John’s decision to terminate his services and that his system provided accurate and timely postings of results.

“Mobile County has used our system for several years with outstanding results,” Scott said. “In Baldwin County on Feb. 5 returns from several precincts in the southern part of the county did not get delivered to the election center until late in the evening.

“Our system was updated promptly throughout, and results were available online starting with first returns at 7:39 p.m. and the last batch of precinct reports were updated shortly after 10 p.m.”

Scott said posted data was checked and compared with Probate Court staffers and found to be correct. When a discrepancy between precinct-by-precinct totals was discovered late on election night between the county’s system and a separate spreadsheet, Site One tracked and corrected the cause.

“It is important to note that the overall votes for each of the candidates and delegates were correct during the entire process and did not vary from agreement with the county’s other system,” Scott said.

Hillary Clinton nudged Democratic opponent Barack Obama, while John McCain easily captured the Republican race in Baldwin County, according to unofficial results.

Clinton received 6,259 or 51.8 percent of the votes cast. Obama garnered 5,450 votes, or 45 percent.

McCain, whose campaign has gained momentum since last summer, received 13,142 votes representing 45 percent of the vote, while Mitt Romney was a distant second with 7,584 votes, or 26 percent.

Johns said 41,404 of the county’s 102,698 eligible registered voters cast ballots Tuesday and included a stronger than usual turnout of young voters. The tally includes early voting results from Jan. 30.

“I have heard from poll inspectors across the county that more young voters were casting ballots and that is a healthy thing,” Johns said.

Poll inspector Berlin Sims said voting was steady all day at the John F. Rhodes Civic Center in Bay Minette, and included lots of young faces.

“I’ve seen young and old, people of all ages, especially more young people,” Sims said. “I believe the young are beginning to understand how important this process is.”

A few voting machine malfunctions occurred during the election, but were quickly corrected without delaying ballot casting, Johns said.

He also noted a larger than usual number of spoiled ballots due to cross voting, and delays in posting results on the Web.

Johns said data packs containing individual precinct tallies were electronically transferred without problems.

About 99 percent of the ballots have been unofficially counted at press time. Johns said only provisional votes are left to tally and that process is scheduled Tuesday at noon.

The Presidential Primary is slated June 3 and the July 15 run-off (second primary) election is July 15.

Complete election results, from Tuesday’s voting, including precinct-by-precinct breakdowns are available at co.baldwin.al.us. Click on Probate, then elections and follow the prompts.