Milwaukee Must Recount 31,000 Absentee Ballots Due to ‘Human Error’

Milwaukee County will run 31,000 absentee ballots through counting machines again after “human error” left the doors of the machines unsealed during an initial count.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported:

Milwaukee’s central count location will rerun about 31,000 ballots after a “sealing” error with the tabulation machines was discovered at the downtown site, potentially delaying a final count by one to three hours, city spokesman Jeff Fleming said.

“It’s just out of an abundance of caution. We have no reason to believe that there was any compromise to any of the machines,” Fleming. “But because they were not fully sealed — human error — and not fully sealed, we are going to zero them all out again … and then rerun the balance that had already been processed.”

Caroline Reinwald, a spokesperson for the Milwaukee Election Commission, said that the doors had not been properly closed for the tabulation machines.

Reported about the problem circulated on social media as well.

Republican Party sources told Breitbart News that they are not concerned that the error could affect the results.

However, many voters are concerned that delays in the counting could create room for improper influence.

A Rasmussen Reports poll released Monday found that 45% of respondents said that “when states are late in reporting their election results, that makes them less confident in the accuracy of the final result.” Only 31% said that late reporting did not make a difference; 21% said late reporting made them more confident.

Wisconsin is considered a battleground state. Donald Trump won it in 2016; Joe Biden won it in 2020 by fewer than 21,000 votes.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.