The late-night release of absentee ballot totals in the city of Milwaukee in the early morning hours of Nov. 6 was both expected by election officials and communicated to the public before Election Day.
In fact, after the polls closed on Election Night, the city of Milwaukee, as required by law, posted on its website the number of absentee ballots returned by the time polls closed and that those ballots would be added into the unofficial totals.
The accusations of large-scale “ballot dumps” in the middle of the night in cities such as Milwaukee stems from a misunderstanding of how the counting process works following a statewide election. This process has been explained by election officials and discussed in the media repeatedly for years, both before the 2024 General Election and before the 2020 General Election.
The city of Milwaukee is one of a roughly a few dozen cities, villages and towns in Wisconsin that count their voters’ absentee ballots at a central location. This is permitted by state law.
While most cities across Wisconsin count absentee ballots at individual polling places, which typically leads to a more staggered reporting out of unofficial results, central count jurisdictions such as Milwaukee count all absentee ballots at a central location, and report out those totals once they have completed the tally of absentee ballots.
In Milwaukee, there are often more than 100,000 absentee ballots to count in a presidential election. When these results are added into the totals at approximately the same time, the results for each candidate will thus change.
It is also not unexpected that the unofficial results from absentee ballots counted at central count jurisdictions may have a different partisan makeup, as the thoughts and attitudes of voters who cast ballots by mail or in-person absentee may differ from those cast in person at the polling place. Additionally, from election to election, political parties may promote the use of one voting option over the other, leading to inevitable differences in the partisan makeup of those who use different voting options.
It has long been the case that central count jurisdictions such as Milwaukee often do not report out their absentee ballot totals from their central count location until late in the night. This does not mean anything is wrong – it means election officials are doing their jobs and ensuring every valid ballot was counted.
In Wisconsin, unlike in many other states, election officials cannot begin counting absentee ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day, when the polls open. And in elections that feature heavy absentee voter turnout, such as 2020 and 2024, the spike in absentee ballots means it takes election officials much longer to count all those ballots. Additionally, other factors, such as the time that the central count facilities begins processing ballots (whether it’s later than 7 a.m.), can affect timing.
The city of Milwaukee has the largest number of absentee ballots in the State of Wisconsin, which can take longer to process.
In municipalities that process absentee ballots at a central location, such as Milwaukee, the unofficial election results are reported out to the public in two different phases. The initial results are typically those from ballots cast in person at polling places on Election Day.
The second set of results typically arrive later, and are the totals from absentee ballots processed at central count. Once both results sets are available, the vote totals from absentee ballots will be added to the polling place totals and complete results sets for each ward will then be posted.
Results for each ward in the municipality, or municipalities, that use central count to process absentee ballots should not be considered as complete until all absentee totals have been added to the polling place totals.
All central count locations are open to the public and the media, and Milwaukee has a heavy presence of election observers from various political parties and organizations.