‘Human Error’ Delays In Swing State Election Latest In String Of Mishaps

Milwaukee election officials are facing renewed questions over training and basic administrative competence after a human error delayed the reporting of approximately 15,000 votes in Wisconsin’s closely watched Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Five of nine USB drives transported from Milwaukee’s Central Count facility contained tabulator audit logs instead of election results, forcing officials to return to the facility under police escort and retrieve the correct data.

The mistake delayed Milwaukee County’s results for roughly an hour during the tight primary contest between Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and Francesca Hong.

“We’re all human, and humans can make errors,” Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutiérrez said during a news conference around midnight.

Gutiérrez explained that staff members would have to return to the operations center, download the correct files and compare the information with the reports generated during the original process.

“So, basically what we need to do is go back to the operations center, and we’re going to download out five of those machines the results and make sure that’s not the audit log,” she said.

“So, have the reports printed from the first download. We’re going to reprint and start the process so that we can compare those results,” Gutiérrez added.

According to the Milwaukee Election Commission, the election results themselves remained stored on the tabulators and were not altered or lost.

“The issue delayed the reporting of Milwaukee’s results, but it did not affect the results,” the commission said. “The election results remained intact and unchanged on the tabulators. No ballots were lost or changed, or needed to be recounted or retabulated.”

Officials said the problem did not involve a voting-machine malfunction. Instead, an election worker reportedly pressed the wrong button and exported the audit log rather than the vote totals.

That explanation established no evidence that votes were manipulated. It did, however, invite questions about why the same mistake occurred on five separate machines before anyone discovered it.

“The fact that this happened five times seems more like a training issue,” former Milwaukee Election Commissioner Claire Woodall told Votebeat.

“Was this person trained on how to export results? Are they familiar with the machines and how you export results?” Woodall asked.

Gutiérrez said downloading results ordinarily takes approximately 10 minutes, although some of the machines completed the process in as little as three minutes. At the time officials discovered the mistake, approximately 15,000 votes remained unreported.

The delay became particularly visible when NBC News election analyst Steve Kornacki learned on air that the drives did not contain the expected results.

“We’re kind of indefinitely waiting for them to get their act together here,” Kornacki said.

“We waited 90 minutes for them. They did this whole procession, and then we find out there’s nothing on the sticks,” he added.

The remaining data was properly downloaded shortly after 1 a.m. Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson subsequently emphasized that officials disclosed the mistake and corrected it publicly.

“At the end of the day, what’s important is that we’re transparent, that the results are secure and that we’re open and honest,” Christenson said.

“And that’s what the City of Milwaukee election director did. She came up here and she explained it, went back, got the results, brought it back to us, and we got everything right.”

Republican state Rep. Scott Krug was considerably less forgiving.

“Complete incompetence at the facility isn’t helping anything here,” Krug wrote on X. “This was human error that could have easily been double checked before leaving the facility.”

The episode is especially damaging because Milwaukee has experienced other election-reporting disruptions involving administrative mistakes.

During the 2024 presidential election, officials retabulated approximately 31,000 absentee ballots after discovering that tabulator doors had not been properly secured. In 2020, a flash drive containing results for approximately 169,000 absentee ballots was initially left behind at Central Count, delaying their reporting.

Wisconsin election officials maintain that the state’s safeguards caught and corrected the latest error.

“Wisconsin elections are safe, secure, and accurate due to multiple checks and balances,” Wisconsin Elections Commission spokesperson Emilee Miklas said. “While human mistake can happen, Wisconsin’s election system, which includes layers of oversight at the local and state level, ensures things are caught and corrected.”

Crowley ultimately won the Democratic primary by approximately half a percentage point, with the race called early Wednesday morning.

Nothing presently reported demonstrates that the USB mistake changed ballots or altered the final totals. But election integrity depends on more than producing an accurate number eventually. It also requires competent procedures that allow voters to trust how officials reached that number.

Repeatedly exporting the wrong data, transporting unusable drives and discovering the problem only while the public waits is precisely the kind of preventable failure that undermines confidence—even when the underlying votes remain secure.