Milwaukee Elections Commission director discusses mistake made during August primary

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The executive director of the Milwaukee Elections Commission, Paulina Gutierrez, spoke to city alders Monday, Sept. 14, about a mistake made at central count during the August primary.

The mishap led to a delay in the counting process after an audit log was downloaded onto a memory stick instead of results. 

Alders asked Gutierrez to explain, in her words, what went wrong that night, and emphasized the importance of it not happening again.

"There cannot be human error in this process, because the process is too important," said Alderman Bob Bauman. "It's not hyperbole that the future of Wisconsin depends on this process."

"We cannot say we will never make a mistake," Gutierrez said. "We are human beings, elections are run by people, and systems that are run by people need checks and balances. And in this case, this is what happened."

Gutierrez said moving forward there will be visual images added to the instructions as well as pre-briefings with the download teams before elections.