ATTLEBORO - A close election, anxious candidates and telephones ringing off the hook with people giving numbers and taking numbers combined to create a well-intentioned, but botched effort by the election office to get information out quickly on election night.

The attempt caused one candidate to think he won and another to think she lost.

The opposite was true for at-large city council candidates Mark Cooper and Kim Allard.

Allard beat Cooper by 63 votes, but the first word Allard got was that she lost.

Election Commissioner Phil Daniels said a commissioner and an office worker were trying to tally votes for Allard, who had called the office, but they didn't have all the precinct results and used some information that Allard had collected. Daniels said they were trying to "marry the two" sources to come up with a result, but for whatever reason, whether it was faulty addition, incorrect numbers or misunderstood numbers, the results were wrong.

He wasn't present during the attempt, but at a Friday meeting Daniels tried to sort out what happened with staff members and other commissioners.

What happened still is not totally clear, but what is clear is that incorrect information was released from the office, Daniels said.

"It was an unfortunate attempt to produce information when we should have said we just have to wait for the memory cards," he said referring to the electronic record of votes from the voting machines. "It was a hectic time, and we didn't do a good job of controlling it."

The confusion is one of the reasons Cooper plans to file for a recount.

Daniels said the matter will be addressed in future elections.

"It's not a pretty picture, but we'll continue to make improvements," he said.