VALPARAISO | A state election official said Monday the county is responsible for an error that left several new and longtime voters off the lists provided to most polling places.

The voters in question were allowed to cast ballots, but each required a telephone call on election day to verify the voter's status with the county voter registration office.

Kathy Kozuszek, a Democrat representative at the county voter registration office, said she does not believe her office did anything wrong.

"I had no reason to believe there was something wrong with the polls books," she said.

Both sides agree the problems stem from the large amount of newly registered voters for last week's primary.

Kozuszek said she and other county election officials had been busy processing about 20 new voters a day, when on the April 7 deadline, supporters of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama dropped off the names of 800 newly registered voters.

As a result of the crunch, the state allowed the county to suspend a seven-day waiting period on new or amended registrations in order to complete the poll books on time.

Matt Tusing, deputy secretary of state with the Indiana Election Commission, said Monday the names in question were left off many of the polling lists because the county processed all but 15 of its polling books before the suspension was granted.

Kozuszek said her office processed the polling books for all of its 124 precincts after the suspension was granted.

The shortcomings with the poll books were among several problems on election day, some of which forced the county to extend voting by an hour. Other problems included a shortage of Democratic ballots and delays in providing them to polling places because of the unusually large Republican crossover vote. A specialized machine used to print new ballots also gave out on election day.