Milwaukee Prepares To Count More Than 105,000 Absentee Ballots

Ballots at the City of Milwaukee central count facility in Nov. 2022. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

City of Milwaukee officials are ready for the city to take center stage in the 2024 election.

With Wisconsin viewed as a pivotal swing state, Milwaukee could deliver the decisive votes to decide the state’s winner. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit Monday morning against the city for what it alleges is improperly restricting observer access to polling places (detailed in a subsequent article).

Milwaukee, as it has in several past elections, is expected to finish processing and report its absentee ballots after midnight. Given the size of the Democratic-leaning city and its use of a centralized absentee-counting facility, the city’s absentee reporting will likely give a major late-night boost to Kamala Harris.

As they attempted to do in 2020 amidst a sea of conspiracy theories about ballot printing, late-night dumps and machine manipulation, city officials are attempting to explain to the public how the process works proactively. That includes emphasizing that the votes it will report last are almost entirely already in hand.

“As of this morning, we have over 105,000 absentee ballots,” said Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutiérrez in a press conference Monday morning. That includes 67,735 in-person early votes. Additional absentee ballots are expected to continue to arrive by mail or via drop boxes. “They will continue to come in until 8 p.m. on election day.”

There is a cap on how many ballots the city could receive back. According to Wisconsin Elections Commission data, the city has issued 113,487 absentee ballots. That’s down from the approximately 169,000 absentee votes cast in the pandemic-altered 2020 election. The city’s late-night absentee reporting in that election pushed Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump, which seen as suspicious by some supporters of Trump, who had spent that campaign demonizing absentee voting. In 2024, Democrat and Republican candidates alike have pushed for early voting, leading to the city surpassing Gutiérrez’s earlier estimate of 80,000 absentee votes in the city.

But despite the volume reduction, Milwaukee still faces a structural issue given its size and the state prohibition against processing any absentee ballots until polls open on election day. A bipartisan bill to allow earlier processing quietly died in the Wisconsin State Senate in February. Gutiérrez, on Monday, said Wisconsin is now one of only two states that doesn’t allow any early processing.

“We’re going to be sometime after midnight,” said Gutiérrez about the time the work would be completed. “I think the challenge is that once we are actually done counting, we have to reconcile all of those wards and then when we seal those ballots, the formal exporting process begins and it will take several hours.”

The city will use 13 high-speed tabulators from Election Systems & Software to image each ballot and export the results to a set of USB drives. Those drives, with police escort, will then be transported to the Milwaukee County Courthouse with the bipartisan election commission and added to the Milwaukee County totals. The city’s in-person results, tabulated at each of the 180 polling places and electronically submitted, will already be waiting. Suburban communities, some of which also use a central count absentee facility, are expected to have already transmitted their results.

“We are going to work as quickly and as securely as possible, however, it will be sometime after midnight,” said Gutiérrez.

The city uses a central count facility for staffing efficiency, public access and security. Forty-two Wisconsin communities are authorized to use the process.

“We’re feeling really strong about central count. We’ve got our staff there, we have all of our machines up and running and ready to go for election day,” said Gutiérrez. The city is renting a large portion of the exhibition hall at the Baird Center.

Central count, which is publicly accessible, will begin operating at 8 a.m., while polls open at 7 a.m. Gutiérrez said the delay gives workers time to set up, announcements to be made and reduces the strain on the administration. “At the end of the day, the longest process is the formal export process,” said the election director, who is overseeing her first presidential election for the city. “Upwards of 300” workers will staff the facility, she noted.

The ballots, said Gutiérrez, have been under 24/7 security in a “secure ballot room” in a city facility. “We always have a robust paper trail and chain of custody,” she said. “Anytime ballots are moved or transported, there is always more than one person.” She said ballots are only handled by trained staff, not law enforcement personnel.

The city’s election equipment underwent a multi-hour, public testing process on Oct. 26.

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