Americans were assured after President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden that it was “the most secure” in the country’s history.
But in the years since, amid ongoing claims by Trump that the election was “rigged,” there have been several suspicious mishaps, most of them in blue states, that, to many Americans, only adds fuel to the president’s allegations.
The most recent example is Milwaukee, Wis., where election results from Tuesday’s primary were delayed after election officials reported a “human error” involving the transfer of voting data from USB flash drives.
Five of the nine flash drives used to download election results failed to properly transfer the data, temporarily delaying the reporting of results from the closely watched Democratic gubernatorial primary between Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and Francesca Hong.
The delay drew criticism from election integrity advocates and Republican officials, who accused local election administrators of demonstrating “complete incompetence.”
The incident comes as election procedures in Democratic-led jurisdictions face increased scrutiny following a series of ballot-counting and reporting issues that have prompted criticism and, in some cases, investigations from GOP lawmakers.
“We’re all human, and humans can make errors,” Paulina Gutiérrez, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, said during a midnight news conference.
The error delayed the release of Milwaukee County’s election results by about an hour as Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Gutiérrez and staff members returned to the Central Count facility with a police escort to retrieve the remaining voting data.
“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 (and) the results and make sure that’s not the audit log,” Gutiérrez said during the news conference.
“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,” she added.
The Milwaukee Election Commission announced that the audit log, which documents activity on the tabulator, was downloaded instead of the election results.
“The issue delayed the reporting of Milwaukee’s results, but it did not affect the results,” the press release stated. “The election results remained intact and unchanged on the tabulators. No ballots were lost or changed, or needed to be recounted or retabulated.”
Gutiérrez said the issue was not related to the voting machines themselves, but rather a mistake made during the process of downloading the election data.
She confirmed to a reporter that an incorrect button was pressed while transferring the results, Fox News noted.
But a local news outlet managed to catch the error in real time, adding more intrigue – and questions – to the equation.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Votebeat, Gutiérrez said the amount of time needed to download results from the tabulators varied depending on the machine.
While the standard download process typically takes about 10 minutes, she said some tabulators completed the transfer in as little as three minutes.
“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 added.
Some 15,000 votes were not counted at the time of the error, said the outlet.
NBC News’ Steve Kornacki showed exasperation after learning of Milwaukee’s error on live TV.
“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.
After the remaining election data was downloaded just after 1 a.m., Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson spoke to reporters and highlighted the importance of transparency to the public.
“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.
