DENVER -- The director of the Denver Election Commission called the series of problems that made this year's election a frustrating experience for thousands of voters a perfect storm.

The panel looking into the Nov. 7 voting mess got a rundown of just what went wrong, though they said it was not just one thing that caused the long lines and vote-counting delays.

There was a series of problems and issues that contributed to the election fiasco. On Wednesday, the head of the election commission suggested some laptop computers were probably at the top of the list.

In hindsight, it's clear this wasn't going to be an easy election.

"It used to be, you come in, set up the machines, have a cup of coffee," said election judge Sigrid Freese.

This year, said Freese, "It was more like 17 hours, and it's stress all day long."

The problems began, she said, with the electronic poll books that were used to check in voters. They couldn't handle the crush of people at the polls.

"It appears to be either a software or probably a software versus a server issue," said Election Commission Executive Director John Gaydeski.

The availability and training of election judges also appears to have been inadequate.

"One of the judges was telling people if you're not in the building, you can't vote, and the line was clear out to Colfax, almost," said one panel member.

One member of the investigative panel, Jenny Flanagan, said a shortage of ballots and lack of poll book testing convinced her "that the lack of readiness is really, from my perspective, one of the biggest problems."

Gaydeski argued the new vote centers didn't cause these long lines.

"That was just not acceptable and I apologize to everyone for that," said Gaydeski. "Perhaps the best approach for us, to iron out the wrinkles in the system now, is to overdo everything. Oversupply."

Freese said more money for election workers is also badly needed.

"You have to raise the pay," said Freese.

Freese suggested the Election Commission probably underestimated how long it would take to process voters using the poll books. She said they were designed to process voters in 30 seconds or less, but in reality voter address changes makes the process much longer, contributing to the bottleneck.