CBS 58 cameras capture Milwaukee ballot counting mistake
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- When city elections staff pressed a wrong button and downloaded the wrong info, delaying Milwaukee's reporting of Tuesday night's primary results, CBS 58 cameras captured one of the moments it happened.
A Republican state lawmaker is calling for a legislative investigation in the wake of the mistake, which caused a one-hour delay in when Milwaukee reported the results of about 28,000 absentee ballots.
Milwaukee Election Commission (MEC) Director Paulina Gutierrez said "human error" was the reason memory sticks handed over to the Milwaukee County Clerk's office included audit logs instead of election results on five of the nine devices.
A CBS 58 crew was at Milwaukee's central count location in Bay View Tuesday night. Recorded images show a screen within the elections page on vote-counting machines gave multiple options, including 'export files' and 'export audit log.'
When Gutierrez pressed 'export files' on one of the screens, a loading screen read 'collecting and exporting batch data.' When another worker hit 'export audit log,' the loading screen read 'exporting audit log.'
Apparently, nobody caught the mistake as the wrong info was exporting on any of the five occasions it happened. Gutierrez did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
In a statement Wednesday, the city election commission said it couldn't have caught the mistake any earlier.
"The error could not be caught sooner by MEC staff because, to maintain security, all material downloaded from the tabulators are encrypted and can only be opened by the Milwaukee County Election Commission at the County Courthouse," the commission's statement said.
Spokespeople in the office of Mayor Cavalier Johnson shared a statement affirming their support for the election commission.
"We reiterate the Mayor’s calls upon state legislators to revisit early processing laws for absentee ballots in order to improve the election process statewide," the statement read.
The mayor's office added the city will revisit its training process for elections workers between now and the November midterm election.
The mishap marked Milwaukee's third significant elections issue in three years.
In November 2024, someone failed to seal the door on a vote-counting machine, prompting officials to recount 30,000 absentee ballots. In the 2025 spring Supreme Court election, 69 polling places reporting ballot issues and nine polling sites ran out of ballots.
Ann Jacobs, a Democratic commissioner for the Wisconsin Elections Commission who's from Milwaukee, said she couldn't say with certainty what, if anything, needs to change at the agency.
"I don't know the answer to that, in the sense that I don't know the limitations the Milwaukee Election Commission staff are working under," Jacobs told CBS 58 Thursday.
State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Rome) called for a legislative review of Milwaukee's election operation.
"Yes, I get it's a button that might be the problem, but that's also a training issue," Krug said in an interview Thursday. "There is a checklist they've used since COVID to go through the steps on how to resolve these issues. Something is not working at Milwaukee Central Count right now."
A screen on Milwaukee vote-counting machines allows users to 'export files' or 'export audit log.' Workers incorrectly exporting audit logs on five machines, delaying the city's reporting of absentee ballot results
The mishap unleashed a flood of claims the mishap was a deliberate attempt to steal the election from State Rep. Francesca Hong. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, backed in the final days of the campaign by Gov. Tony Evers, won by fewer than 4,000 votes.
Crowley was up by about 2,000 votes when the Milwaukee absentee results were finally reported after 1 a.m., so the late reporting only increased his head.
Congressman Derrick Van Orden from western Wisconsin made at least six social media posts claiming the election was "stolen" but when asked for an interview, referred questions to his communications director, who did not respond to an interview request a CBS 58 reporter sent more than six hours earlier.
"We're all individuals," Krug said when asked about the unfounded fraud claims. "That's the beautiful thing about being Republicans, we're all independent thinkers...so I can't comment on somebody else's tweets or somebody else's comments."
Early processing a solution? Maybe
Jacobs said Milwaukee's elections staff would be in a much better place in the Legislature passed a bill allowing clerks statewide to begin processing absentee ballots one day before elections.
Currently, Wisconsin is one of six states that do not allow early ballot processing, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The state Assembly passed a measure allowing "Monday processing" on a bipartisan basis in the 2023-24 legislative session, but the Senate did not take it up for a vote. A similar bill failed to gain traction in the 2025-26 session in either chamber.
It's not clear how early processing would've prevented Milwaukee's 2024 and 2026 central count mishaps, aside from workers being less strained on election day. However, earlier processing would shorten the process on election day, allowing the single-lump reporting of Milwaukee's absentee ballots to come earlier in the night.
Krug said he would be open to supporting early ballot processing, but wanted that paired with reforms at central count locations.
"I'm still interested in Monday processing," Krug said. "But as a condition of that, I need to know what the issues are at central count."