Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will re-tabulate roughly 31,000 absentee ballots after finding that their tabulation machines were not properly closed, city officials told reporters hours before the polls were set to close on Nov. 5.
City spokesperson Jeff Fleming said that officials do not believe that the voting equipment was “tampered with in any way.” Nonetheless, they will err on the side of caution and start the process again.
“There have been extensive discussions with election officials here in consultation with people in Madison and our attorneys, and they said, let’s make sure there’s absolutely no question, and so that part of the process will be redone,” Fleming said.
He said that officials will reset the voting equipment to zero and rerun the ballots through the machines. The process could delay the city’s election results by several hours.
That’s unwelcome news for many who are watching the results closely as the battleground state is set to play a deciding role in determining the next U.S. president.
Fleming noted that the processing of the absentee ballots and their envelopes—the most time-consuming aspect of the process—will not be re-done in this case.
The Milwaukee Election Commission (MEC) told media outlets in an emailed statement that it was alerted to the issue in the afternoon.
“Each machine has a door that should have been locked and sealed. It appears some doors were not fully secured by senior election officials,” the commission said.
While noting that officials had “no doubt” as to the integrity of the election, the commission said the tabulation process would nonetheless be restarted to ensure transparency.
“This decision was made in consultation with both Republican and Democratic officials,” the commission said, adding that there was no estimate for how long the final count would be delayed.
At a press conference before 6 p.m. local time at the Baird Center, where absentee ballots were being tabulated, MEC Executive Director Paulina Gutierrez confirmed the issue was with voting equipment, not with ballot envelope sealing.
“The mistake was, they sealed the machine, but did not properly close it,” she said. “It’s a human error. It’s been a long day.”
Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said she found the news that counting had occurred in “unsecured conditions” to be unacceptable.
“This is an unacceptable example of incompetent election administration in a key swing state: voters deserve better and we are unambiguously calling on Milwaukee’s officials to DO THEIR JOBS and count ballots quickly and effectively. Anything less undermines voter confidence,” Trump said in a statement.
