Milwaukee's election results from Tuesday's primary were delayed because of a "human error" in which five of the nine USB flash drives did not download the election results, prompting critics to call it a showing of "complete incompetence."
The error effectively stalled the results of the closely watched Democratic gubernatorial primary between Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and Francesca Hong. The delay came amid heightened scrutiny of election administration in Democratic-led jurisdictions, where recent ballot and reporting errors have drawn criticism and, in some cases, investigations from Republican lawmakers.
"We’re all human, and humans can make errors," Paulina Gutiérrez, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, said during a midnight news conference.
The error delayed the county's election results by an hour as Gutiérrez and Milwaukee Election Commission staffers returned to Central Count with a police escort to retrieve the remaining voting data.
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"So basically what we need to do is go back to the operations center and we're going to download out five of those machines the results and make sure that's not the audit log," Gutiérrez said during the press conference "So have the reports printed from the first download. We're going to reprint and start the process so that can compare those results."
The Milwaukee Election Commission said in a news release that the audit log, which documents activity on the tabulator, was downloaded rather than the election results.
"The issue delayed the reporting of Milwaukee's results, but it did not affect the results," the press release stated. "The election results remained intact and unchanged on the tabulators. No ballots were lost or changed, or needed to be recounted or retabulated."
Gutiérrez said there were no issues with the voting machines themselves but confirmed to a reporter that a wrong button was pushed in downloading the data.
In an interview with Votebeat, Gutiérrez said the time it took to download results from the tabulators varied. She said that while the standard time frame was 10 minutes, some tabulators completed the downloads in three minutes.
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"The fact that this happened five times seems more like a training issue," former Milwaukee Election Commissioner Claire Woodall told Votebeat. "Was this person trained on how to export results? Are they familiar with the machines and how you export results?"
The error meant that 15,000 votes had yet to be counted at that point.
NBC News' Steve Kornacki buried his face in his hand after learning of Milwaukee's error on live TV.
"We’re kind of indefinitely waiting for them to get their act together here," Kornacki said. "We waited 90 minutes for them. They did this whole procession, and then we find out there’s nothing on the sticks."
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After the remaining election data was properly downloaded after 1 a.m., Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson addressed reporters and emphasized the importance of being transparent with the public.
"At the end of the day, what’s important is that we’re transparent, that the results are secure, and that we’re open and honest ," Christenson said, "And that’s what the City of Milwaukee election director did. She came up here and she explained it, went back, got the results, brought it back to us, and we got everything right."
But despite the transparency, critics did not hold back.
"Complete incompetence at the facility isn’t helping anything here," Republican state Rep. Scott Krug wrote on X. "This was human error that could have easily been double checked before leaving the facility. More than one answer to the problem not one silver bullet"
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The Milwaukee error follows other election-administration problems in various blue states. New Jersey recently disclosed that a software error improperly registered roughly 6,600 people who had indicated they were not U.S. citizens, with fewer than 400 later casting ballots. In Oregon, officials said DMV errors resulted in 1,945 people being registered without providing proof of eligibility, 44 of whom voted. And a Connecticut judge ordered a new Democratic mayoral primary in Bridgeport after finding evidence of absentee-ballot violations cast the original result into doubt.
This is also not the first "human error" involving the Milwaukee Election Commission.
During the 2024 presidential election, election officials recounted 31,000 absentee ballots because staffers did not lock tabulator doors. The error delayed results from 105,000 absentee ballots.
During the 2020 presidential election, then-Milwaukee Election Commissioner Claire Woodall left one of the 12 flash drives containing election results at Central Count, delaying the reporting of roughly 169,000 absentee ballots.
Wisconsin Election Commission spokesperson Emilee Miklas said that while errors may happen, Wisconsin's election integrity is secure.
"Wisconsin elections are safe, secure, and accurate due to multiple checks and balances. While human mistake can happen – Wisconsin’s election system, which includes layers of oversight at the local and state level, ensures things are caught and corrected," Miklas said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
The race between Crowley and Hong was officially called at 2:34 a.m. Wednesday, with Crowley winning by 0.5%.