Milwaukee Election Officials Blame ‘Human Error’ After 30,000 Ballots ‘Fixed’ Overnight
by David Hawkins
Milwaukee election officials are under renewed scrutiny after a late-night processing error forced workers to revisit roughly 30,000 ballots and delayed final results until after 1 a.m.
The problem began when five of nine memory sticks delivered from the city’s central count facility to the Milwaukee County Courthouse were found to contain audit logs instead of vote totals.
Officials said the mistake was caused by a worker selecting the wrong download option.
Wrong Files Trigger Late-Night Scramble
Milwaukee Election Commission Director Paulina Gutierrez said the voting machines did not cause the issue.
Election workers instead had to return to the central count location, pull the correct results from five machines, and transport the data back to the courthouse.
The error forced officials to reprocess approximately 30,000 ballots before the county could complete its tally.
Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson announced the final county results shortly after 1 a.m.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley finished with 65,131 votes, or 43.04%.
Wisconsin state Rep. Francesca Hong (D) received 62,739 votes, or 41.46%.
🚨 WOW. Socialists are furious after “human error” in Milwaukee WI after midnight caused 5 USB STICKS to NOT have the election results on them 🤯
So officials went back, “fixed” the data, uploaded it, and socialist Francesca Hong NARROWLY LOST by a few thousand votes to David… pic.twitter.com/u4JY00kwxe
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 12, 2026
Officials Point to Audits as Questions Mount
Christenson said the county’s canvass and additional voluntary audits would provide further verification of the totals.
“At the end of the day, we will start the canvass tomorrow or the next day, which essentially is an audit,” Christenson said.
“And we also do two extra voluntary audits.
“So there are plenty of checks and balances in the system to alleviate any of those concerns.”