A Colorado elections official Tuesday praised Colorado Springs’ municipal election as a well run process hours before the vote count ground to a halt with 9,000 ballots still to be tallied.

City Clerk Kathryn Young announced at 9:40 p.m. Tuesday that she was sending about 20 election workers home for the night with about 9,000 mail ballots left to be counted. Nearly 74,000 ballots had been counted.

“We’re not going to get them done tonight,” Young said.

The halt caught city officials off guard, stunned some election watchers and frustrated candidates, especially where the outcome could be in question.

“That’s a lot of votes,” said District 3 Council candidate Mike Merrifield. “I don’t know how many will be from District 3. I would say we still don’t know who won then, but I’m going to go to bed.

“I am really frustrated with the city clerk’s office inefficiency.”

Laura Carno, chief of staff for mayoral candidate Steve Bach, said: “Is that normal?”

Bach was No. 2 in the race for mayor and likely headed to a runoff election against frontrunner Richard Skorman.

“It’s not going to affect me, in terms of being No. 1 or 2,” Skorman said.  “Especially with races that close, it would be good for them to stay up late and get this done.

“It’s got to be hard on them to wait till tomorrow. These things usually go all night until they’re counted.”As for candidates left hanging, Young said, “I’m sorry about that, but I’m not going to have these people working until four or five in the morning.”

Some of the elections workers had been on duty since 6:30 a.m. Young said.

Shortly before she stopped the counting, city spokeswoman Sue Skiffington-Blumberg had told a reporter that “they’re getting them done as quickly as possible.” She had estimated the process would take another half-hour, which would have meant a final tally around 10 p.m.

Now, the final count is expected early Wednesday afternoon.

One snag in the count involves ballots where the signatures could not be verified because they were not in the database. Young said the county would have to check those ballots.

But she said the main reason for sending staff home was the late hour.

El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Wayne Williams said city officials last came to his office Tuesday morning to check signatures.

“We did tell the city clerk’s office that if they needed us to stay open to check signatures, we’d be happy to work with them on that, but no request was made,” Williams said.

He said his staff would be working at 7 a.m. today, adding that he expected that the number of ballots needing signature verification to be quite small.

About 7:45 p.m. Tuesday, Colorado Deputy Secretary of State Wayne Munster said his office monitored everything from the opening of mail ballots from the U.S. Postal Service to the counting of those ballots.

“We have been very impressed,” he told reporters while standing next to Young. “We observed every step of the process. We found every step to be secure, comprehensive and accurate.”

Munster could not be reached for comment after Young halted the count.

The Secretary of State’s office agreed to observe the election after five candidates running for mayor or city council said they lacked confidence in Young’s ability to administer an election.

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Staff writers Jakob Rodgers, R. Scott Rappold, Barb Cotter and Linda Navarro contributed to this report.

Colorado Springs City Clerk Kathryn Young held a press conference with Wayne Munster, Deputy Director of Elections for Colorado outside of the City Administration building after the deadline for ballots on Tuesday, April 5, 2011. Photo by JERILEE BENNETT, THE GAZETTE

Jerilee Bennett