Security measures enhanced for Milwaukee Courthouse on Election Day
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Tenth Street will be shut down, and police escorts are planned for absentee results workers
The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office is taking extra security measures this year on Election Day.
Tenth Street will be shut down near the Milwaukee County courthouse, metal detectors will be right inside the doors and police escorts for the ballot results and the workers themselves will be provided.
There is concern that this could be a focal point of anger in an election with razor thin margins that could be decided in Wisconsin.
On election night, the Milwaukee County Courthouse cafeteria will be transformed into a place of vital importance. It’s where all the county votes will be tabulated in the most populous county in one of just a few battleground states determining the 2024 presidential election.
“I’d just encourage people to be patient with the process,” said Michelle Hawley, elections director of Milwaukee County.
The 19 cities and villages in Milwaukee County electronically transmit by modem from 250-plus polling places directly to the cafeteria, with absentee ballots coming in last and some even delivered by a police escort on flash drives.
“It’s not just results that are on those drives. I have to bring over every single image of every single ballot that was processed on those machines at Central Count,” Hawley said, explaining why the results for the absentee ballots aren’t added instantaneously.
Hawley added that it takes additional time for poll workers to tabulate those absentee ballots.
“There’s a two-person team, a Republican and a Democrat, that are reading off the name of the person, they are validating that the voter has signed the envelope, they are validating the certification of the witness, they are writing the voter number,” Hawley said.
There are already 125,000 absentee and early voting ballots submitted in Milwaukee County, representing a quarter of the registered voters.
“So, on Friday, I reached out to the clerks and said, ‘Do you guys need some more ballots? Let’s try to get that order in right away.’ You wouldn’t think that we need extra ballots for Election Day — that’s not something you want to have happen — so we’ve placed a supplemental order with our printer so we’re ready for Election Day,” Hawley said.
In the city of Milwaukee and its biggest suburbs, West Allis and Wauwatosa, those absentee votes are counted last and physically transmitted to the courthouse to be ingested. Hawley said that’s because of the volume of the data.
Those results aren’t expected until after midnight.
