The candidates and the media covering the South Carolina GOP primary have been gone for more than 36 hours now, but fear not, the good folks in Horry County have finally tallied all their votes from Saturday’s election. And the results come just in time for nobody to care that John McCain actually won this state by about 3.5 percent.

According to the county’s unofficial results, U.S. Sen John McCain, Ariz.,won with 8,406 votes, followed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who had 7,265 votes and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney who had 4,764 votes. Former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani had 911 votes and Ron Paul had 672 votes.

About 20 percent of Horry County’s registered voters–25,944– cast their ballots in the GOP primary. [ALIANA RAMOS - Myrtle Beach Sun News]

The State Elections Commission folks are trying to say this was all “human error” and not a machine malfunction. Technically, they’re correct.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the machines still failed, regardless of who or what caused it. Folks, Dan Rather was right.