By Lucretia Hughes Klucken
MILWAUKEE — Five of nine USB drives delivered to the Milwaukee County Courthouse on election night did not contain the expected vote totals, delaying the reporting of approximately 15,000 absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s closely watched Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Milwaukee election officials blamed the incident on “human error,” saying a worker downloaded audit logs instead of election results from five high-speed ballot tabulators.
The mistake delayed Milwaukee’s final results until after 1 a.m. Wednesday and fueled immediate questions on social media about “missing” USB drives and an alleged late-night ballot dump.
The drives themselves were not reported missing. The five devices reportedly contained the wrong electronic files.
That distinction matters, but it does not excuse the failure.
Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutierrez said officials discovered the error after arriving at the county courthouse with nine USB drives carrying data connected to the city’s absentee count.
Five drives contained audit information instead of vote totals.
“It’s a human error,” Gutierrez said.
The commission’s bipartisan team returned to Milwaukee’s central absentee-counting facility under police escort, properly downloaded the results from the five tabulators and transported the corrected drives back to the courthouse.
Officials said the results were compared against previously printed records before being incorporated into the county totals.
The paper ballots remained at the central-count facility and did not need to be scanned again, according to election officials.
Approximately 27,268 absentee ballots were returned by Milwaukee voters. The five incorrect downloads reportedly affected the electronic reporting of about 15,000 of those ballots — not 18,000 newly discovered ballots, as some social media posts claimed.
No public evidence has been presented showing that ballots were manufactured, added to the count or altered during the delay.
But elections cannot survive on officials repeatedly saying, “Trust us.”
The incident occurred during an extremely close Democratic primary between Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and state Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist.
Before Milwaukee completed its absentee reporting, the statewide race remained too close to call. The delayed Milwaukee votes were large enough to affect which candidate would become the Democratic nominee for governor.
After the corrected results were reported, Crowley finished with 65,131 votes in Milwaukee County, or 43.04%. Hong received 62,739 votes, or 41.46%, according to the county’s unofficial results.
Crowley ultimately won the statewide Democratic nomination and will face Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany in November.
Because the race was so close and the reporting failure involved thousands of absentee votes from the state’s largest city, the public deserves more than a brief explanation about someone pressing the wrong button.
Who downloaded the files?
Who was responsible for checking each USB drive before leaving the central-count facility?
Were the drives sealed and documented?
How many people handled them?
Do the electronic audit logs match the printed tabulator reports and the number of paper ballots?
Were representatives from both political parties present throughout the correction?
Those are not conspiracy theories. They are basic chain-of-custody and election-administration questions.
The Milwaukee County Clerk’s unofficial results page reported 521 of 521 wards and 180,927 ballots cast countywide. It also listed the number of absentee ballots issued and returned for municipalities using central-count facilities.
That information allows the public and candidates to compare the number of absentee ballots received with the number included in the reported totals.
Election officials said the correction happened publicly and involved the city’s bipartisan election commission. They also emphasized that each electronically reported vote remains supported by a physical paper ballot.
Those safeguards are important.
But safeguards only build confidence when they are followed, documented and independently verified.
This is not Milwaukee’s first high-profile election-night controversy involving flash drives or absentee ballots.
During the 2020 presidential election, a Milwaukee election official temporarily left a flash drive in a tabulator after other drives had been transported to the county’s reporting location. Officials said the device remained under election or police supervision and that no vote totals were altered.
In 2024, Milwaukee officials decided to retabulate tens of thousands of absentee ballots after observers discovered that doors on some tabulating machines had not been properly secured. Officials described that decision as a precaution and said there was no evidence of tampering.
Wisconsin later conducted an audit of the 2024 election that found no ballots had been incorrectly counted, altered or missed by voting machines.
Those findings should be acknowledged.
But a clean audit in one election does not eliminate the need for accountability in the next.
Milwaukee officials have argued that Wisconsin law contributes to delayed absentee reporting because municipalities cannot begin processing those ballots before Election Day. Central counting means a large number of absentee results may be reported at once, often late at night.
That process can create what appears to viewers as a sudden surge or “ballot dump,” even when the ballots were legally received, processed and counted throughout the day.
The answer is transparency.
Election officials should publish the complete chain-of-custody records for the nine USB drives, the original audit files, the corrected result files, the printed tabulator tapes and the final reconciliation report.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission should also conduct an independent review of the mistake and determine whether additional procedures are necessary before November.
Every candidate deserves to know the rules were followed. Every voter deserves proof that his or her ballot was counted correctly.
Saying “human error” cannot become the government’s universal answer whenever election procedures fail.
Human beings operate the machines, transport the results and certify the totals. That is precisely why verification, observation and accountability are required.
There is currently no verified evidence of an 18,000-vote ballot dump or five physically missing USB drives in Milwaukee.
There is verified evidence that five of nine drives arrived without the required election-result files during a close statewide primary.
That failure should not be exaggerated, but it should not be dismissed either.
Faith in elections is earned through transparency — not demanded through press conferences.
Lucretia Hughes Klucken is the host of Real News with Lucretia Hughes. Follow her reporting, broadcasts, books and mission at linktr.ee/lucretiahughes.
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