Political campaigns are full of drama and anxiety for candidates and their volunteers.

But somebody has to handle the mundane work of actually counting the votes. On election night in Albuquerque, that happens in the basement of City Hall.

It mostly revolves around little cartridges the size of a credit card. The results from each precinct are captured electronically on the cartridge.

Workers pick up the cartridges in batches from drop-off points throughout Bernalillo County. They drive them to City Hall, head down to the basement and meet the county clerk -- this year, that's Maggie Toulouse Oliver.

Standing on the council-commission stage, she takes the cartridges and writes them in a logbook. Toulouse Oliver then hands them to one of the county's information-technology employees, who sticks each cartridge in a disk drive.

The precincts are then dumped into the database with all the previous results, and the county Web site is updated.

It's even less exciting then it sounds, especially at 1 in the morning.

Bernalillo County has one precinct left to count, not two as indicated on its Web site.

County spokeswoman Liz Hamm said the discprenancy is the result of a precinct at Kirtland Air Force Base in which no votes were cast on Election Day. The computer database is treating that precinct as if it's still missing, but it's not, she said.

Results from the remaining precinct were accidentally put in the mail by a poll worker. The county clerk has recovered the cartridge containing the vote totals and is awaiting word from state officials on whether she can process it into the results.

Also remaining to count are about 800 provisional and in-lieu-of-absentee ballots. They are given to people who show up at the wrong polling place or claim they didn't receive an absentee ballot in the mail as requested.

Election workers must determine whether each ballot is valid before tabulating it. They are expected to start that process this afternoon, but Hamm didn't know when the work will be finished.

Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver said it's been a routine Election Day so far, but there have been some minor glitches:

-- Some poll officials didn't show up this morning, but the county had back-up workers ready to step in.

-- There were reports of poll workers asking voters for photo identification, but Toulouse Oliver said her staff advised the workers they can't ask for that. No one was turned away, she said.

-- A handful of voting machines failed but were replaced.  "Nothing has slowed down the voting process," Toulouse Oliver said.

-- The voter-registration database maintained by the New Mexico secretary of state went down for about an hour but is back up. 

 Toulouse Oliver said there are some signs that turnout could be high. About 12 percent of the eligible voters cast absentee ballots or went to early-voting locations. And another 15 percent usually show up on election day. That would give the county a 27 percent turnout, well above the 18 percent that's typical for primary elections, she said.

Toulouse Oliver hopes to report the results of absentee and early votes a little after polls close tonight at 7.  Election Day precincts will be posted as they're available throughout the evening.

The wildcard will be the number of provisional ballots that must be verified and counted. They're given to voters who show up at the wrong polling place or otherwise have questions about their eligibility to vote.

Toulouse Oliver said it's unclear how many of those there will be. 

City Councilor Michael Cadigan wants the city to establish a small-business center with $80,000 he sponsored in the new city budget.

Cadigan will introduce a resolution on Monday offering guidelines on how the center should operate. It would be aimed at helping small businesses succeed and offer advice, including how to bid for city contracts.

"Small businesses find it difficult to navigate through licensing, permitting, and regulations at the local, state and federal levels," Cadigan said in a written statement.

About 84 percent of the businesses in Bernalillo County have 19 or fewer employees, Cadigan said, based on Census data.