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Election Day live updates: Polls are now closed in half the country as results come in: NPR

Election Day live updates: Polls are now closed in half the country as results come in: NPR

Workers count ballots at the Baird Center in Milwaukee on Tuesday.

Workers count ballots at the Baird Center in Milwaukee on Tuesday.

Stacy Revere/Getty Images


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Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Officials in Milwaukee say they are re-counting about 34,000 ballots after a glitch with some of their machines.

Wisconsin Elections Commission Chairwoman Ann Jacobs explained in a series of posts on X that the tab machine doors were not as locked and sealed as they should have been this morning.

“Both political parties agree that there has been nothing wrong with the table so far,” she added. “However, in the interest of transparency and so that people can have confidence in the tabulation, the decision has been made to re-tabulate the ballots that have gone through so far.”

This process will delay Milwaukee's coverage as Jacobs will apologize for the “very late night” in the city.

But she said it was “absolutely the right decision” on the part of election officials, especially considering they did so before any results were available.

“Nobody knows how the original scanned ballots were voted on,” she said.

Jacobs also emphasized that there is nothing wrong with the tabs themselves.

“Out of an abundance of caution, they're going to count those 30,000 ballots there again, but there's no indication at all that the process is fraudulent or rigged or anything like that,” election security correspondent Miles Parks said on NPR's special radio coverage.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told NPR that he plans to visit Milwaukee Central Count to speak with poll workers and observers about the delay.

“A machine started up again, they had to reset the counters and they count again,” he said. “Now they say we won’t get the results until the early hours of the morning.”

Wisconsin is one of the few key swing states that could help decide the election. They voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020.

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