Three communities had to report their poll numbers from yesterday’s primary the old-fashioned way.

Most cities and towns conveyed their vote counts electronically, sending the information via phone lines to a computer system at the Board of Elections. But Burrillville, Charlestown and North Smithfield had to deliver their results by car to the elections board headquarters in Providence, according to executive director Robert Kando.

Kando said a telecommunications glitch was responsible for the snafu. The three communities switched to digital phone systems, but the elections board computer system can only interact with analog systems.

Kando said that the board had cautioned communities about the problem of switching to digital systems and that most heeded the warning and retained an analog phone line to transmit election tallies.

“I’m told these communities were assured [by vendors] they would get an analog line, but they didn’t,” he said of Burrillville, Charlestown and North Smithfield. “We expect these communities will have an analog line by the general election.”

Last night, however, the three communities’ final results were delayed. Kando said a state trooper drove the results in from Charlestown, the community furthest from the election office. Election officials in Burrillville and North Smithfield were to drive in the numbers themselves.

Still, Kando said last night, given that some communities had much larger turnouts, he didn’t expect these to be the last numbers to arrive.

Kando said the problem surfaced during a recent statewide trial run of the election vote count reporting system.