We desperately need to fix Milwaukee’s central count process
The votes were counted accurately in the end. Legislative Republicans keep blocking an obvious, important fix. But there still needs to be more accountability in Milwaukee.
The Recombobulation Area is a 19-time 21-TIME! Milwaukee Press Club award-winning opinion column and online publication founded by Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer.
This column is one part of Dan Shafer’s deep-dive mega-breakdown of the election results from Wisconsin’s Aug. 11 partisan primary. Read the full column with all 12 takeaways here.
Each of these 12 takeaways are available as a standalone free version. Find each of those here.
First, the caveats.
The accurate results were delivered in the end. The accuracy is more important than the timing, and despite how unbelievably irritating this process was — see the later hours of our unhinged election night livestream for our exasperated reactions in real time — getting the end result right is what matters most.
Also: It’s not just Milwaukee. Election night issues occurred in Winnebago County and Green County. They, too, were all fine in the end. But no one is talking about this, because of big ol’ scary Milwaukee.
This is a refrain we’ve sung over and over in recent years, but the Republican-controlled State Senate blocking a bill to allow for early count is completely indefensible, and is directly contributing to the timing of these late-night ballot drops. It’s an easy fix.
This is the obvious upstream solution to many of the downstream issues Milwaukee experiences. The city’s population is more than double that of any other municipality in the state, and it simply takes longer to count more ballots than fewer — people across the political spectrum have been clamoring for this change for years. It’s only because of folks like Republican state senators Devin LeMahieu and Dan Knodl that we’re still in this position in the first place.
Nevertheless, the downstream issues are also inexcusable and clearly need to be addressed differently, too. The stakes are too high not to raise the level of accountability — especially after city leaders made a big show of demonstrating how much things had improved.
Alexander Shur of Votebeat, who spent the day and night at Central Count, described how it unfolded:
“Milwaukee election officials spent Tuesday trying to prove they had a better way to count absentee ballots — faster, smoother, and with less reason for anyone to doubt the process.
Then, after 15 hours of nearly flawless work, a few minutes of human error blew up the plan.
At around 11:10 p.m. on Tuesday night, city officials left their central count facility without exporting results from five of its nine tabulators, forcing them to race back under police escort and delaying Milwaukee’s results by about 90 minutes. It was the third time in recent years that a significant tabulator-related mistake had disrupted the city’s heavily scrutinized absentee-ballot operation.”
Republican State Rep. Scott Krug, who has previously advocated for the early count bill, is now calling for a report on Milwaukee’s election-night error. He is not unjustified in doing so. In his reporting at CBS 58, A.J. Bayatpour also noted that this is the third significant elections mishap in three years.
Whether it’s a problem of leadership at the Milwaukee Elections Commission or something else, there needs to be a greater level of accountability for these errors. It is unfair that Milwaukee has to walk on glass but never fall. But that is the reality. If this were a one-time issue, that’s one thing. But it keeps happening, and changes need to be made.
Dan Shafer is an independent journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He worked with Civic Media from 2024 to 2026. He’s written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 24 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
Subscribe to The Recombobulation newsletter here and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at @ therecombobulationarea.
Already subscribe? Get a gift subscription for a friend.
Part of a group who might want to subscribe together? Get a group subscription for 30% off!
Follow Dan Shafer on Twitter at @DanRShafer, at BlueSky at @danshafer.bsky.social, and on Threads at @danshafer.