State Rep. Dave Maxey, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, is demanding a full public accounting from Milwaukee election officials after staff left the city’s central count facility without exporting results from five of nine tabulators on the night of the Aug. 11 primary.
In a formal letter dated Aug. 21 to Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutiérrez, Maxey described the incident as a “travesty” that delayed Milwaukee’s results by roughly 90 minutes while the nation watched a closely contested statewide primary hang in the balance. Staff had to return under police escort to retrieve the missing data.
“This is unfortunately not an isolated incident,” Maxey wrote. “It is the third significant central count failure in recent election cycles: a flash drive left behind in 2020, unlocked tabulator doors that forced a 31,000-ballot recount in 2024, and now a failed export process in 2026. Three strikes is not bad luck, but rather a pattern of mismanagement.”
Milwaukee operates the largest and most scrutinized central count operation in Wisconsin. A checklist created after the 2020 mistake — requiring a single official to extract results from each tabulator while accompanied by other staff — was apparently not followed this time. Officials later acknowledged that the “wrong button” was pressed on five machines, causing them to download audit logs instead of vote tallies.
Maxey is requesting a detailed, timestamped account of the error and an explanation of exactly where the established checklist broke down and who was responsible for enforcing it.
The repeated failures in Milwaukee’s absentee ballot processing continue to fuel doubts about the reliability of the state’s largest election jurisdiction. When basic procedures fail three times in six years, voters on both sides of the aisle are left wondering whether the system can be trusted without constant last-minute drama. Maxey’s letter makes clear that excuses are no longer sufficient.
