A ballot scanner at a Milwaukee polling place failed to read at least 100 ballots early on Election Day, forcing election workers to divert the completed ballots into a locked auxiliary box until the problem was resolved.
Election workers later fed the ballots through the machine and counted them.
ALERT: A ballot machine in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, experienced an issue where at least 100 ballots were not read.
The issue was reportedly fixed, and the ballots were then counted.
Always confirm that your vote was counted! Every vote matters!
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 3, 2026
Local news crews and the Milwaukee Election Commission confirmed the incident at Saveland Park Pavilion on the city’s south side, and the Commission later reported a similar machine problem at Fire House #38.
The glitches arrived on the same day a detailed internal Milwaukee Election Commission manual circulated online that includes shared laptop login credentials, an ExpressVote access code, and step-by-step instructions for staff to correct voter records, register voters, cancel absentee ballots, and deactivate applications.
WISN 12 News reported that the Saveland Park Pavilion issue involved roughly 100 ballots the machine could not read, which were placed in a locked box.
By 10:22 a.m., the technical problem had reportedly been fixed, and station crews watched as the ballots were run through the scanner and added to the totals.
The Milwaukee Election Commission stated that every properly cast ballot remained accounted for.
Later in the day, the commission confirmed a separate voting machine problem at Fire House #38 that was resolved shortly before 11 a.m., with the machine back in operation and all ballots cast during the outage reportedly counted.
Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe addressed these problems during a morning briefing, explaining that when machines jam or encounter networking issues, polling places revert to accepting ballots in an auxiliary bin.
“Usually those are resolved very quickly, and as soon as it’s resolved, then any of the ballots that were stored in the locked auxiliary bin will be fed through the tabulator and added to the totals just like all of the other ballots,” Wolfe said.
.@WI_Elections Administrator Meagan Wolfe urged people to be patient for results tonight after the polls close.
She said clerks have to process nearly 800,000 absentee ballots statewide. https://t.co/dWnDIZTIbc
— Spectrum News 1 Wisconsin (@SpectrumNews1WI) November 3, 2026
The Milwaukee Election Commission also reported a clerical issue involving some ballots that lacked required voter ID numbers. Officials said they audited and processed those ballots after determining they belonged to eligible voters.
Separately, election observers and reporters noted an early issue at Milwaukee’s Central Count facility at the Italian Community Center, where one of the high-speed tabulators used for absentee ballots had an unsealed door.
Officials corrected the jammed seal, applied it, and generated a machine report showing zero ballots had been processed through that unit before the problem was discovered.
A Republican observer told Votebeat he was not concerned once the zero-ballot report was produced.
Milwaukee’s central count is off to a smooth start, besides a brief hiccup involving a tabulator that initially wasn’t sealed.
Officials noticed the issue, sealed the tabulator, and ran a zero report showing that no ballots had been run through the machine.
— Alexander Shur (@AlexanderShur) November 3, 2026
Milwaukee has faced repeated equipment and procedural problems in recent elections.
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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. The subsequent release of the machines’ audit logs reportedly showed no evidence that ballots were added, deleted, or altered during the gap.
Officials maintained throughout Election Day that contingency procedures protected the ballots and that all properly cast votes would be counted.
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