Last night in the Wisconsin Democrat primary, David Crowley defeated Francesca Hong by a little more than 3,200 votes. This was after late-night drama unfolded in Milwaukee County just before midnight, as reported by The Gateway Pundit.
According to a post from Urban Milwaukee co-founder, Jeramey Jannene on X:
“5 of 9 USB drives had audit logs, not actual results, copied to them. Bipartisan commission will go back to election warehouse, redownload, drive back again. 15k ballots believe to be impacted. One hour delay. “Human error” says Paulina Guiterrez.
Wisconsin’s WISN 12 covered the press conference and the remarks from Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director, Paulina Guiterrez.
“As part of the download process, there are two things: there’s the audit log and the results. What we uncovered was that five of the sticks had the audit log downloaded and not the results. It’s a human error. These things can happen.
So basically what we need to do is go back to the operations center and we’re going to download, out of those five machines, the results and make sure that its not the audit log.
We have the reports printed from the first download. We’re going to reprint and start the process so that we can compare those results. We invite you to come join us. Milwaukee Police Department will come with us too.
We’ll re-download those results and then send them back here to be uploaded.
When asked if it was five machines that were an issue, Guiterrez clarified that it was the “sticks” that had the audit logs downloaded, not the results, on 5 out of 9 “sticks.”
This explanation and attribution to “human error” is bizarre—so much so, even NBC’s Steve Kornacki was speechless:
NBC’s reaction to finding out 5 USB sticks in Milwaukee were MISSING RESULTS of the Election at midnight is priceless.
Steve Kornacki was speechless… pic.twitter.com/Laix1S2CBF
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 12, 2026
A few moments later, Kornacki, seemingly flabbergasted, was about to end the election-night coverage on NBC News’ Kornacki Cam because they seemed to be “indefinitely waiting.”
🔥🚨 AWKWARD — NBC ended its live coverage of the Wisconsin Democratic primary as Milwaukee County officials announced a “tabulation error” in the election data.
Five of nine USB sticks with the absentee ballot results contained only audit logs rather than the actual vote… pic.twitter.com/cWjh3uTYSG
— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) August 12, 2026
Was it “Human Error”?
Milwaukee County uses ES&S voting systems, and according to VerifiedVoting.org, they use the DS950, DS450, and DS850 for their mail-ballot/absentee equipment. All three of them are similar platforms and vary mainly by scanning capacity and accuracy, with the DS950 only accepting “certified and approved USB flash drives.”
The process for exporting results is straightforward. According to the DS850 user manual, when exporting data from the system, the user is prompted with several options. The first option is “Export For Results.” “Export for Audit Log,” as was allegedly done in Milwaukee, is the third option on the list.
According to the manual, when exporting results, the user is prompted to enter the Election Code before uploading the results.
Then the user is prompted with a “Confirm exporting of results” window, which they must “Confirm.”
Finally, the user is shown a final pop-up window that says “The results were successfully exported.” They must click “Done” to proceed.
The process is the same for the Audit Log, except it says “Audit Log” rather than “Results” at each of the steps in the process.
It is very difficult to believe that there were five separate occasions where a trained election worker chose “Export Audit Log” and confirmed it several times throughout the process without realizing that they didn’t select “Export for Results.”
According to reporting from Jeramey Jannene on X, “Of the five tabulators, three cover the northwest side dominated by Crowley. One covers Bay View and another goes further south. Riverwest and East Side, dominated by Hong, weren’t impacted.”
Inquiries have been made to the Milwaukee Elections Office. The Gateway Pundit will update the story as more information about the situation in Milwaukee is obtained.
Of the five tabulators, three cover the northwest side dominated by Crowley. One covers Bay View and another goes further south.
Riverwest and East Side, dominated by Hong, weren’t impacted.
Still hard to say exactly what absentees will reveal, but looks positive for Crowley
— Jeramey Jannene (@compujeramey) August 12, 2026
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