Maybe we should stick with the hand-written ballots.

The website tracking the Republican caucus results in Iowa experienced intermittent outages on Monday, a stumble for what had been a highly touted new system from Microsoft on its Azure cloud computing platform.

SEE ALSO: This is how Microsoft apps are tallying and innovating the Iowa Caucuses

The reason for the outage was not immediately clear. People that tried to access the site were met with a messages: "The service is unavailable."

microsoft azure cloud computing platform pic.twitter.com/Z1hr1qoKCH — Andrei Scheinkman (@ascheink) February 2, 2016

The new system had been lauded as a significant leap forward in technology for a process that is often done with paper ballots sorted by hand.

However not long after results began to roll in, the website experienced some outages. The site worked intermittently for some at various points in the night.

There were no reports that the website for the Democrats had any issues.

The incident drew attention immediately, given that 2016 is the most technologically connected election cycle in history.

Fairly or not, the incident drew some tongue-in-cheek comments that referenced the NFL playoff game just two weeks ago, when the New England Patriots had issues with their Microsoft Surface tablets, giving the Denver Broncos an advantage.

5 cable channels reporting non-stop from IA and we have had not one report yet on the Microsoft Surfaces (or whatever they are)? FAIL. — emptywheel (@emptywheel) February 2, 2016

Microsoft confirmed that the site was overwhelmed by interest. The company said that the Democratic site also experienced problems, but <em>Mashable</em> could not find any evidence of that.

"The mobile apps for both parties have been working without issue. National interest in the Iowa Caucuses has overwhelmed the Democratic and Republican Party Iowa Caucus websites, and we’re working to resolve," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email.

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