Why did it take the state Board of Elections longer to post voting results from Little Compton than almost any other town in the state? The town’s election moderator believes the answer lies in the town’s notoriously poor cellular telephone service and the technology employed by the DS200 voting machines used across the Ocean State.

Reporting delays are not uncommon in Little Compton, where cell phone service is unreliable, particularly in the Commons area, moderator Larry Anderson said Wednesday morning. Similar delays occurred during the statewide primary earlier this year, and at the general election two years ago.

Going into this election, Anderson and town clerk Heather Cook anticipated delays could occur again, and he said they planned for it as best they could. Still, “for all the efforts to make a secure reporting system,” the state’s system didn’t work and that’s why voters across town who relied on the state’s website to see election results didn’t get complete, or mostly complete, results until midday Wednesday.

Those numbers were still not complete as of 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, as there is a possibility that a small number of mail-in absentee ballots have yet to be added.

What happened exactly?

As election results spewed out of four voting machines Tuesday evening — from two in-person election day machines at the Wilbur McMahon School and two at Town Hall that had processed early voters’ ballots — it was Anderson’s job to read the results and then transmit the data, with poll workers’ help, to the state board of elections.

This year’s effort was complicated and slowed by the additional number of machines in place for early voting, and the large, multi-page ballot — “I knew going in that the procedure was going to be long and more complicated.”

The machines record voting data on tapes and a thumb drive and are designed to securely transmit that data to the state after Anderson and workers finish their portion of the work.

Anderson said the data is designed to be transmitted over an encrypted, secure cellular network, and each machine has a connection with that encrypted line. But because the Commons and Town Hall area is a “dead zone” for cell service, workers expected to have issues transmitting that data, and did.

So when repeated attempts to transmit data wirelessly failed, workers took a series of steps required by the state in case of issues.  At that point, the town’s contingency plan, used during the September primary and again Tuesday evening, kicked in. Workers handed two sealed envelopes containing thumb drives, tapes and required documents to a Little Compton police officer, who drove the packets to the board of elections in Cranston just after 10 p.m.

“The town clerk did what she could to be prepared,” Anderson said.

Still, he said the delays were likely frustrating to voters and were not easy on poll workers: “It’s unfair to the poll workers who have been there all day, and very stressful,” he said.

Not the first time

Following similar problems during the Sept. 9, 2026 primary, Anderson wrote a letter to the board of elections asking officials to come up with better solutions for towns like Little Compton. He never received a response, “and I didn’t expect to.”

Still, he asked in the letter for changes to make the process more efficient in Little Compton, as “to the best of my knowledge, town officials have no practical control over the strength and reliability of the cellular network at the voting site,” he wrote.

Rep. Michelle McGaw, who ran unopposed this year, said she has noticed similar delays in Little Compton since she first ran for office, and has long advocated for improved connectivity in the town. With the most recent issue this year, she said, she plans to reach out to the state and ask that changes be made. The system is imperfect and could be improved, she said, and "I also know that broadband and cellular services have been terrible in that community for as long as I can remember.”