Milwaukee Voting Machines Fail to Read Over 100 Ballots
Milwaukee voting machines failed to read over 100 ballots during early voting, prompting officials to store them in a locked box.
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During early voting in Milwaukee, multiple voting machines experienced technical issues, leading to the failure to read over 100 ballots. Election workers confirmed the problem at the Saveland Park Pavilion on the city’s south side, and the Milwaukee Election Commission reported a similar issue at Fire House #38. The glitches occurred on the same day an internal manual circulated online, revealing shared login credentials and detailed instructions for managing voter records.
ALERT: A ballot machine in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, experienced an issue where at least 100 ballots were not read.
Officials stated that the affected ballots were placed in a locked box and later fed through the machine once the issue was resolved by 10:22 a.m. The Milwaukee Election Commission assured that all properly cast ballots remained accounted for. A separate problem at Fire House #38 was also resolved shortly before 11 a.m., with all ballots cast during the outage reportedly counted.
Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe explained that when machines jam or encounter networking issues, polling places revert to an auxiliary bin for ballots. She noted that these issues are typically resolved quickly, and any stored ballots are then fed through the tabulator and added to the totals.
.@WI_Elections Administrator Meagan Wolfe urged people to be patient for results tonight after the polls close.
Additionally, election officials addressed a clerical issue involving some ballots that lacked required voter ID numbers. These ballots were audited and processed after confirming they belonged to eligible voters. Election observers and reporters also noted an issue at the Central Count facility at the Italian Community Center, where a high-speed tabulator had an unsealed door. The problem was corrected, and a machine report showed no ballots had been processed through that unit before the issue was discovered.
Milwaukee’s central count is off to a smooth start, besides a brief hiccup involving a tabulator that initially wasn’t sealed.
Milwaukee has faced repeated equipment and procedural problems in recent elections. In the 2024 presidential election, improperly secured tabulator doors at Central Count forced officials to restart counting and re-run about 31,000 absentee ballots. During the August 2026 primary, election workers mistakenly downloaded audit logs instead of results from five tabulators, delaying the city’s reporting by about an hour. Officials maintained throughout Election Day that contingency procedures protected the ballots and that all properly cast votes would be counted.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
