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    • Milwaukee is holding a demonstration of voting equipment on Election Day
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    Milwaukee is holding a demonstration of voting equipment on Election Day

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    Nearly a dozen observers gathered Saturday at the Milwaukee Election Commission warehouse in the city’s Bay View neighborhood to watch as election workers conducted a public test of the equipment that will be used to count votes on Nov. 5.

    At one of the machines was the Executive Director of the Electoral Commission, Paulina Gutiérrez, answering detailed questions from a group of eight. Behind her, test ballots whizzed through one of the machines that lined the wall in a back room of the warehouse.

    The Observer Journal indicated that eight were from the Republican Party. Of the remaining three, one was listed as “Electoral Protection of Wisconsin,” one was a member of the public, and one was an employee of the company that makes the machines.

    “Public testing is part of the statutory election preparation process, but I think it really gives the public an opportunity to see how we do the work that we do and see the machines and … get familiar with those machines and then also learn about our process,” Gutiérrez told reporters.

    Municipalities must conduct the public test 10 days before an election, a step meant to ensure that the programming of voting equipment is correct, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

    To ensure that the election equipment is recording the results correctly, election officials insert a set of pre-marked ballots into each machine and review the results that are generated. Testing ends only when the count is error-free, with any problems found in testing fixed before the equipment can be used in elections, according to the state Election Commission.

    The public testing of election equipment comes as a result of intense scrutiny of the electoral process in Milwaukee, expected on November 5

    The public test comes just over a week before the city’s election administration is once again under intense scrutiny in the close race for the White House between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

    Trump in 2020 leaned toward false claims, including voting in Milwaukeeto try to undermine the election in which he lost the White House to his Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

    Trump lost Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes, a result confirmed by recounts he paid for, court rulings, a non-partisan state audit and a study of a prominent conservative group.

    Gutiérrez on Saturday urged those with concerns about the city’s election process to participate in the process by serving as a poll worker.

    And, she said, the people who run the election as poll workers are a bipartisan group of community members.

    “The staff that work for us is an amazing staff,” she said. “There are thousands of people who live and work in this community. They are your neighbors. They are your friends.”

    Among the observers Saturday was Doug Kwikkel of Hartland.

    The GOP volunteer said he wants to come Saturday to see how the process works. He said he was comforted to see paper ballots being used and how “thorough” election officials were in their processes.

    Kwikkel said he saw it as his duty as an American to participate.

    A first-time election observer, Kwikkel said he got involved now because “this election is far too important for us not to get out, vote and participate.”

    He plans to observe at one of the city’s polling places on Election Day as well, he said.

    Election machines “passed rigorous standards of logic and accuracy” before Election Day

    On Saturday, the city’s public test included all 13 high-speed “tabulators” that will be used to count the results of tens of thousands of absentee ballots at the central Milwaukee County location and a sampling of the machines that will be used to the 180 people in the city. the polling places.

    All the machines that will be used to count votes on Nov. 5 have been previously tested and “passed rigorous standards of logic and accuracy,” according to a spokesman for the city’s Election Commission.

    Gutiérrez estimated the city could receive 80,000 ballots. As of 10:40 a.m. Saturday, the city had issued 65,487 absentee ballots and 49,067 had been returned. Personal absentee voting started on Tuesday.

    On Saturday, election officials used 5,000 ballots that showed every possible combination of votes that could be on a ballot, Gutiérrez said. This is meant to test each place on the ballot paper to make sure the machine is counting it accurately.

    Once the public testing is over, all results on the machines are zeroed out and then the machines are sealed. They won’t be reopened until Election Day, when officials will double-check that the machines haven’t been unsealed, she said.

    The process of counting the votes then begins, with two specially trained people working together, she said.

    “In elections, it’s always a big paper trail, checks and balances,” she said. “And even after the election is over, there are more audits at more levels of government.”

    Milwaukee absentee ballot results will be counted at the Baird Center on Election Day

    City ballot results will be counted at the Baird Center in downtown Milwaukee on Election Day.

    Once all the absentee ballots are counted, a second lengthy process begins.

    Election Commission staff must export the results from each of the 13 drive-thru absentee ballot machines, which are then secured in a bag and taken by a bipartisan team to the Milwaukee County courthouse in a police vehicle, a Gutierrez said. There they are uploaded to the county website on election night, a process that also takes time.

    In Wisconsin, the election the process is open to the public for observation.

    Milwaukee may be one of the last, if not the last, to report its absentee ballot results.

    Gutiérrez expects those results to be reported after midnight on November 6.

    Alison Dirr can be reached at [email protected].

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