A Powerball ticket bought in Southern California hit for the record $2.04 billion jackpot, following more than three months in which no tickets matched the numbers for the top prize. (Tasos Katopodis, TNS file/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

The Minnesota Lottery said a communication problem with an external vendor's computer system was behind a delay of a few hours in the record $2 billion Powerball drawing this week.

The Minnesota Lottery could not complete its essential verification process because of the error, which took more than an hour to fix, according to an account that the agency published late Thursday. The drawing, scheduled to take place Monday evening, was delayed until the morning.

A Powerball ticket bought in Southern California hit for the record $2.04 billion jackpot, following more than three months in which no tickets matched the numbers for the top prize.

"While we were disappointed to delay the national drawing, the integrity and accuracy of our games always take priority," said the account released by Lottery spokeswoman Marie Hinton. "That is why there are numerous checks and balances in place to ensure every ticket has an equal chance to win and the drawing pool is correct."

The issue stemmed from two vendors who were not able to communicate in real time, which in turn did not allow for the Minnesota Lottery to process sales data, according to the release.

At no time was the sales data or the game compromised, according to the Minnesota Lottery. Staff worked from the time the last ticket was sold in the state at 9 p.m. to 2:15 a.m. when they made the decision to start over processing the entire day's sales data because the vendor determined it could not process the data it collected throughout the day.

It took 5.5 hours for staff to process the "tremendous" number of sales and the task was completed at 7:50 a.m. on Nov. 8 — clearing the way for the lottery to take place four minutes later.

Before drawings can happen, every data entry must be transmitted between two systems and match. Until all the data matches, a drawing cannot take place until the issue is identified and corrected, according to the release.

The Minnesota Lottery is working with its vendors to review every step to minimize delays while maintaining security.

"We sincerely apologize for the delay," the Minnesota Lottery's statement said. "While we can't promise another delay won't occur, we can promise that the security and integrity of the Minnesota Lottery will remain our top priority."