It's Nov. 4, and you're primed for the election season to finally end. You kick back on the couch to watch results tumble in as TV pundits try to predict the next president.

For a while, it looks good for Republicans as they rack up victories in Michigan, Ohio and much of the South.

But the Democrats come back, taking Pennsylvania, New York and California. A close race in Florida means delays, but the Democrats triumph there, too.

During simulated elections that ended Friday, clerks had problems accessing the system from polling sites and generating data reports. They also said the system, known as SCORE (State of Colorado Registration and Election) slowed down when many poll workers were connected simultaneously.

That's why clerks in Weld, Mesa and Larimer counties plan to use their county systems to check in voters on Election Day. Other clerks also want to limit the use of the new system this year.

Colorado's new, centralized voter registration database will get a test drive over the next two weeks as county clerks put it through a mock election.

The exercise, which kicked off Monday, will simulate all aspects of the voting process for clerks statewide, just short of counting ballots, said Secretary of State Mike Coffman. The idea is to put as much stress as possible on the new State of Colorado Registration and Election system, or SCORE, and to discover problems in time to fix them for the August primaries.

But the light might not stay green for long.

A growing number of studies by technology experts show that the machines, mostly bought and deployed within the past five years, can easily be hacked and can lose or miscount votes. Election officials in New Jersey, California and South Carolina encountered malfunctions or miscounts during recent presidential primaries.

The allegation is in a lawsuit the technician filed as a "whistleblower" against his former employer, Hart InterCivic Inc., which he says has a research and development office in Lafayette.

William Singer alleges that Hart InterCivic lied to election officials around the country about the reliability of its voting system in an effort to obtain federal money allocated to the states under the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

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A survey of Colorado's 64 counties reveals that at least 60 percent of the state's registered voters will have the option of casting a paper ballot at a polling place on Election Day. In at least 35 of the state's counties — representing at least 1.3 million registered voters — paper is the primary method of voting. Those counties range from the biggest, Denver, to the smallest, San Juan.

At least another nine counties will offer a hybrid system, where voters can choose to vote on either electronic voting terminals or by paper ballot.

Ritter's decision comes in the face of opposition from many county clerks and Secretary of State Mike Coffman. Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said Wednesday that the change of course was a "collective decision" based on the input of clerks, lawmakers and Coffman and the fact that Coffman has now recertified the electronic voting machines.

Shortly after legislative leaders at the Capitol withdrew their support for the plan, Gov. Bill Ritter said the $11 million that had been pledged for a paper-ballot election will be used for other purposes.

"It's deader than a doornail," said Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, a Colorado Springs Republican who had been a co-sponsor of the bill.

Gov. Bill Ritter and legislative leaders want voters to be able to cast paper ballots at the polls because they are not sure voters trust the electronic machines. Even so, a majority of the state’s county clerks want to conduct a paper ballot election by mail.

That, however, is fraught with danger.

Mail-in balloting is an invitation to fraud. There’s a history of that in Colorado, where a nun “helped” residents of a nursing home cast their ballots which ended up favoring the sister’s politics.

BOULDER — Myriah Conroy is 36 years old with dark, curly hair and a spray of freckles across her cheeks.