MARYSVILLE, Wash. -- KING 5 News has uncovered inconsistencies in how the votes from Saturday's Republican Caucus are being reported, raising questions about the accuracy of the statewide count.

As of Monday at 5 p.m., John McCain had 25.4 percent of the vote to Mike Huckabee's 23.8 percent.

New numbers were released Monday at 10 p.m. with 96 percent of the votes counted: John McCain has 25.6 percent, while Mike Huckabee has 23.3 percent.

Luke Esser, the State GOP Chairman, acknowledged Monday evening that mistakes were made in four counties: Snohomish, Benton, Jefferson and Grant.

"Apparently there was a miscommunication as to information that we needed, which was the presidential preference of the delegates who were elected and not the presidential preference of the attendees… So in those four counties, we were comparing apples to oranges," he said.

When voters participating in the caucuses walked through the door, they signed in. In Snohomish County, that sign-in sheet is what Republicans used to report results.

"And then the very last column asked them for their preference if they were to vote today, and those were the numbers we counted," said Geri Modrell, Snohomish County Republican chair.

In reality, Republicans acknowledge the sign-in sheet is not an accurate way to figure out who won.  After signing in, caucus-goers had plenty of time to debate and change their minds.  What really matters is what delegates they picked in the end to go to the county convention.

For example, the winner on the sign-in sheets in Pierce County was Huckabee, with 609 supporters showing up.  But, by the time Pierce County elected delegates, it flipped, and John McCain walked away with 192 delegates, beating Huckabee.

In Snohomish County, caucus leaders say they also noticed the sign-up sheets did not match the final delegates at all.

Saturday night, Washington state Republican Party chair Luke Esser declared McCain the winner.  But KING 5 has learned that there's no way the party could have known the delegate preferences from Snohomish County, because that county never reported delegate results, instead relying solely on those sign-up sheets.

"And we had already explained to them that we would not have that information for a couple of days," said Modrell.  "I haven't talked to them. I have no idea what they did with our numbers.  They obviously would not be able to use those numbers as a comparison with the rest of the counties."

"So we're challenging those results.  We want a fair election up there and we're just not sure we had one," said Huckabee.

The Huckabee campaign was already suspicious when McCain was declared the winner so early.  Democrats point out that, under Republican rules, delegates are free to change their minds anyway.

"There's really no way that the Washington state Republican Party could have declared that John McCain was the winner," said Tim Killian, Democratic delegate.

Republicans in Snohomish County say they had the best of intentions.  They just felt that the sign-up sheets were more accurate than trying to guess what the delegates were going to do later.

The Huckabee campaign has sent an attorney to Washington state to keep an eye on what's going on.

The Washington state Republican Party did not comment Monday.