Overview
- Milwaukee election officials said Tuesday night that five of nine USB drives delivered from the central-count facility contained audit logs instead of vote totals, forcing staff to return to the site and re-download the correct files.
- Reports differ on the scope of the delay, with city and local outlets citing roughly 28,000 absentee results affected while other accounts put the figure near 15,000, and the discrepancy will be a focus of the review.
- The final tally, completed in the early hours after the re-upload, showed Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley narrowly defeating Francesca Hong by about 3,000–4,000 votes.
- Officials stressed that paper ballots and built-in checks preserved the underlying vote and that there is no public evidence of tampering, while conservative politicians and commentators amplified the error as proof of wrongdoing and demanded investigations.
- The incident is the third high-profile Milwaukee election operational problem since 2024 and could prompt changes to city procedures and state-level rules for absentee processing as the post-election review aims to resolve the ballot-count discrepancy and recommend safeguards.