On Tuesday night, vote totals from the city of Milwaukee were delayed after election commission staff "erroneously" downloaded the wrong information onto USB drives. Instead of the vote totals, staff downloaded the audit logs, and it took more than an hour for staff to retrieve the correct information.
This raised more than a few eyebrows because Milwaukee routinely has late election returns, often after the rest of the state has sent in their vote totals. Critics say it seems like Milwaukee, a blue county run by Democrats, is waiting to see how many votes it needs to tip the scales of the election. Is that true? We don't know.
But what we do know is that on Tuesday night, Francesca Hong, who was told she had a 20-point lead over Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, lost by 0.42 percent, or fewer than 3,300 votes. We also know that David Crowley didn't see a path to victory in the Democrat governor primary, and dropped out on July 9. He came back about two weeks later after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez ended her campaign amid a finance scandal. Gov. Tony Evers endorsed Crowley and campaigned with him — something Evers refused to do for both Rodriguez, his current Lt. Gov., and Mandela Barnes, who served under Evers during his first term.
Reporter A.J. Bayatpour was asking questions about what happened on Tuesday night.
SCOOP: Our cameras caught the moment Milwaukee elections staff screwed up.
— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) August 13, 2026
While the city Election Commission says there was no way to see the wrong info was on the USB sticks bc it's encrypted, it sure looks like someone could've caught what they were mistakenly exporting... pic.twitter.com/sXlOp6e5He
If you look at the top of the pic, it clearly says "Export Audit Log." And not one member of the election staff could read that? Not one of them could notice the error before they delivered the incorrect USB drives?
State Rep. Scott Krug wants a legislative investigation into Milwaukee's central count. This might lead to allowing Milwaukee to count absentee ballots on Monday, as WI is one of only six states that doesn't allow it.
State Rep. Scott Krug (R-Rome) wants a legislative investigation into Milwaukee's central count.
— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) August 13, 2026
Would he lead an effort to allow Monday processing (WI is only one of 6 states not allowing it)?
"I'm still interested in Monday processing...but I need to know what the issues are" pic.twitter.com/sQMfzyv3Nu
"There's no silver bullet," Krug said. "Even if I gave Monday to be the issue, there's still personnel problems going on at central count and Milwaukee itself. It's part of the solution, but it's not the silver bullet to everything, so we've got to do better with training, got to make better appointments; we've got to find whether it's better electeds or appointments across the board in Milwaukee City or County. It's not just as simple as, say, Monday processing fixes all the problems."
This is the third election where Milwaukee has had issues. Bayatpour asked Ann Jacobs, past chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, about the issues.
Focusing on Milwaukee, this is now the 3rd elections mishap in 3 years (unsealed machine '24, ballot shortage '25, wrong button '26).
— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) August 13, 2026
I asked @AnnJacobsMKE if the city has to tighten it up.
"I don't know the limitations the Milwaukee Election Commission staff are working under" pic.twitter.com/jromkrkDkQ
"Is there a call for the Elections Commission, for the City of Milwaukee to, frankly, tighten things up?" Bayatpour asked.
"I don't know the answer to that in the sense that I don't know the limitations that the Milwaukee Elections Commission staff are working under," Jacobs replied. "I don't know their budgetary limitations, their personnel limitations. Certainly, when we see things like this happen, we want them to be fixed right away; we want procedures in place so that they never happen again. So with regards to those machine doors being opened, which was quite the thing. When I arrived at central count the other day, I definitely went through and looked at the machines, and they were all locked and sealed and very visible to anyone who wanted to see that."
Hello @FBI, have I got a development for you... https://t.co/sacdCJtjmH
— Dan O'Donnell (@DanODonnellShow) August 13, 2026
There is talk of the FBI investigating the Milwaukee Election Commission over this.
Have to give props to AJ for putting this out there. Unfortunate that once again election administrators in Milwaukee should have caught this, not cameras. Milwaukee has had a vote count issue seemingly every election in recent memory. https://t.co/R7OLMAYVYm
— Wisconsin’s Conservative Sponge (@wiz_political) August 13, 2026
There's no reason they didn't catch this. It's right there, in 30-point font.
Milwaukee elections might be caught in a fib saying they never could have known they had the wrong vote data on over half of the flash drives during the Tuesday night reporting snafu. @CBS58 and with the scoop. https://t.co/TznMZJBfcp
— Matt Henkel (@mhenks05) August 13, 2026
It's hard to buy that this was "human error."
Would any reasonable person look at this screen and not realize that they had just exported audit data and not votes (especially after hitting “confirm” when asked if they want to export audit data)? Because the City of Milwaukee wants you to believe someone did…five times. pic.twitter.com/0QnWY8w2AR
— Dan O'Donnell (@DanODonnellShow) August 14, 2026
As Ian Fleming said, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
As Bayatpour pointed out, the Milwaukee Elections Commission has had issues in the last three elections. Will they fix these issues before November?
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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