Milwaukee rerunning more than 30,000 absentee ballots over error, delaying results

The City of Milwaukee restarted the processing about 31,000 absentee ballots after an election observer brought to officials' attention that doors covering on-off switches on some of the machines that are used to tally those votes had not been properly closed, the city's top election official said.

Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutiérrez Tuesday evening said the decision to begin recounting those ballots was made out of an “abundance of caution" and in consultation with Democrats and Republicans.

“I know for a fact that these machines are highly secure, there was no tampering,” she said. “We were able to confirm that.”

Gutiérrez did not know why the doors had not been properly closed, which caused seals on those doors to become loose.

She and other city officials declined to name the senior election official who had not properly closed the doors.

The unsealed doors cover the on-off button, meaning if the machine had been tampered with it would be turned off, she said. The machines were not turned off, she said.

A turned-off machine “is a very apparent thing that we would all see here in this public sphere,” Gutiérrez said.

The city ultimately delivered its absentee ballot results on thumb drives to the Milwaukee County Courthouse about 3:24 a.m. Wednesday. The county uploaded those results to its election night website about 4:30 a.m.

Republicans slam Milwaukee after absentee ballot issue

The Republican National Committee in a statement accused the city of counting its absentee ballots in "insecure conditions."

"This is an unacceptable example of incompetent election administration in a key swing state: voters deserve better and we are unambiguously calling on Milwaukee's officials to do their jobs and count ballots quickly and effectively," RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump said in the statement. "Anything less undermines voter confidence."

LIVE COVERAGE: Wisconsin election results

In Wisconsin, municipalities cannot start counting their absentee ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day. A bipartisan bill that would have allowed ballot processing to begin the day before was killed in the Republican-controlled state Senate.

Gutiérrez responded to the RNC by saying the city's central count is "one of the most secure operations."

"We have been fully transparent. We brought Democrats and Republicans together to help us make sure that this is secure," she said.

Democratic Party of Wisconsin Communications Director Joe Oslund said the party is "confident the city will ensure every vote is counted."

Delay in Milwaukee absentee ballot results expected due to reprocessing

Even before the error was discovered, city officials were estimating final absentee ballot results wouldn't be released until the early morning hours.

Still, Gutiérrez said the reprocessing of some 31,000 absentee ballots through the machines was going more quickly than the first time around because the ballots were now flatter and election workers were “in their flow.”

(This story has been updated with new information.)

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee rerunning more than 30,000 ballots over error