Brenda Snipes easily won her fourth term as Broward's Supervisor of Elections on Tuesday, defeating businessman David Brown.

Snipes' name will appear on the November ballot, but she only faces two write-in candidates who qualified to run but whose names will not be listed.

But Snipes' triumph was quickly overshadowed when Broward's election results were inadvertently posted at 6:30 p.m. on the Supervisor of Elections website —before polls closed at 7 p.m.

Mindy Perkins, CEO of VR Systems, told the elections canvassing board that a link to a preview site was made live by mistake.

"A staff member of ours inadvertently created a link that was a preview of the election results that were not intended to be public," she said.

Florida statute says that no election results "shall be released until after the closing of the polls in that county on Election Day."

The Tampa Bay Times reported that Secretary of State Ken Detzner referred Snipes to the Broward state attorney and sheriff.

A spokeswoman for the Broward Supervisor of Elections said Detzner had not spoken to Snipes or anyone from the office as of 10:55 p.m.

"I had absolutely no involvement in the cause of that problem, nor did my staff," Snipes said. "And this was clearly stated when the CEO of VR Systems addressed the canvassing board in a phone call."

Brown was in attendance at the canvassing board meeting and said the early posting of results was "another embarrassment for this office."

shobbs@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4520 or Twitter @bystephenhobbs