DENVER -- Democrat Ken Gordon conceded the secretary of state race to Republican Mike Coffman on Tuesday, a full week after an election marred by massive problems and an agonizingly slow tally.

Coffman, the state treasurer, held a 27,457-vote lead over Gordon in unofficial statewide results compiled by The Associated Press.

"I want to congratulate Treasurer Coffman on winning the secretary of state race. It was a clean campaign, well argued on both sides, and I think he's going to do a good job," Gordon said.

At a 19-minute news conference, the two shook hands and said the bungled election has encouraged them to work together to fix the process, Gordon in the post he retains as Senate majority leader, and Coffman as Secretary of State.

Coffman, who spent six months in Iraq with the Marine Reserves to help with the national elections before returning earlier this year, was asked if he missed the war-torn country. His office is filled with memorabilia from the war.

"Let me just say this, the elections in Iraq went an awful lot better than in Denver and Douglas Counties," Coffman quipped.

Coffman had 762,046 votes as of Tuesday afternoon in the AP's unofficial count and Gordon had 734,589. Some votes were still being counted.

In addition to the counting delays, many voters had to wait for hours to cast ballots on Election Day, and some reportedly gave up without voting.

Gordon said more than the experience of waiting for results, seeing people in line on election day spurred him to action.

"At seven o'clock on Election Day, I went over to some of the voting centers. I saw these extremely long lines and talked to people, not to lobby them to vote for me, but to encourage them to stay and vote," he said. "I thought, we can't let this happen again."

The problems were blamed on computer slowdowns, equipment failures, a long and complicated statewide ballot and a switch by many big counties to voting centers from the traditional precinct model.

After the vote, some Denver ballots had to be hand-sorted because bar codes that were supposed to aid in the sorting process were incorrectly printed.

Both Gordon and Coffman were vague on what exactly they plan to do, other than work together and look for solutions.

Gordon suggested Denver may want to return to precinct voting, instead of the voting centers that allowed voters from any precinct to cast a vote at any center.

Coffman, considering Denver's use of an appointed clerk and recorder on a three-member elections commission, said, "I think there are some organizational problems in that structure."

A shake-up was already under way in Denver.

Wayne Vaden, one of three members of the Denver Elections Commission, submitted his resignation to Mayor John Hickenlooper on Tuesday, saying, "I accept my fair share of responsibility for the problems experienced in the recent election."

City Auditor Dennis Gallagher has proposed changing the city charter to overhaul the elections commission. It currently consists of two elected members and one appointed by the mayor. Gallagher wants the city to have a single elected clerk and recorder.

Vaden held the appointed position on the commission.

Anthony Rainey, the election commission's technology chief, has been placed on "administrative investigative leave."

Hickenlooper named a panel to investigative what went wrong, and its first meeting was scheduled Wednesday.

In Douglas County, where a shortage of voting machines forced some people to wait for hours to cast ballots, the county commissioners said they would form an 11-member panel to assess the problems.