Milwaukee's election commissioner addressed a human error that caused about 28,000 absentee ballots to be delayed late in the evening of the primary election, saying the process and procedure is under review.
"Since 2024, we've conducted after-action reviews every election, and we our review for this partisan primary is underway. It's an entire department-wide effort," said Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutierrez.
At a Friday meeting, Gutierrez said the commission plans to update its procedure.
"The failure of the to download the correct files it was a human error, and we are obviously accountable to that mistake. We have plans to update our written procedure to include images of each screen," Gutierrez said. "We want to make that written procedure available to observers at central count."
Watch: Milwaukee Election Commission begins review, plans procedure updates after ballot delay
Milwaukee election officials say workers accidentally uploaded audit logs instead of actual vote totals onto five out of nine flash drives used during ballot processing. When TMJ4 spoke with Gutierrez late Tuesday night, she described the issue as a:
"We had a human error, that's what it was. It was a mistake that the wrong report— the button on the machine was the wrong one that was pressed," Gutierrez said.
Earlier this week, TMJ4's Mike Beiermiester spoke with Wisconsin Election Commission Vice Chair Bob Spindell, who criticized the matter and called for an investigation.
"There were problems in 2024. There's problems last night, and the explanation that I heard did not satisfy," Spindell said.
Election officials say the ballots themselves were never compromised.
"We operate with only 11 full-time staff, which is exceptionally lean for a city of our size. But overall, you know, the partisan primary was administered without major issues impacting voters or the accuracy of elections," Gutierrez said.
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