Politics
Milwaukee adds new safeguards after primary reporting delay, tests election equipment
City officials say every voting machine has passed accuracy checks ahead of the Nov. 3 election, and workers will use new steps to reduce the risk of another reporting mistake. Absentee ballots will be counted at the Italian Community Center, with observers able to watch.
Milwaukee election officials demonstrated voting-machine checks Saturday and outlined new procedures they say are intended to prevent a repeat of the mistake that delayed results from the August primary.
At the Milwaukee Election Commission’s Central Operations Center, workers fed pre-marked test ballots into machines and compared the printed totals with the expected results. The test begins with a report confirming that a machine has recorded no votes; if its count does not match the test totals, officials must investigate and fix the problem.
Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutiérrez said every machine in the city has been tested. Any machine that fails an accuracy check will not be used on Election Day, she said.
The new safeguards follow an August incident in which election workers uploaded audit logs instead of ballot results, postponing the release of results until early the next morning. Gutiérrez said the commission has added visual images to download reports and will provide the public with procedures to follow the results-download process on election night. Workers will also use a “point and call” method, verbally confirming each step as they download results.
The public demonstration came as the city prepares for the Nov. 3 general election. Two election lawyers who have worked for presidents from opposing parties—Republican Ben Ginsberg, who served former President George W. Bush, and Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama—attended through the bipartisan Pillars of the Community initiative.
Ginsberg said the August error was acknowledged and corrected, though it extended the count. He noted that monitors from both parties observed the process. How officials respond when mistakes occur, he said, is important to maintaining public confidence.
The commission is preparing for high turnout, though Gutiérrez said it is too early to estimate when absentee-ballot counting will finish on election night. Before early in-person voting began, requests for mail-in absentee ballots were down about 30%. Early in-person voting has since exceeded the level recorded during the 2022 midterm election and is slightly below the pace of the 2024 presidential election, she said.
Wisconsin law bars election workers from counting absentee ballots before polls open at 7 a.m. on Election Day. Milwaukee’s absentee ballots will be counted at the Italian Community Center, where officials plan to use locked containers, document ballot transfers and have police present. Election observers will be permitted to watch the count.