From the Article:
City of Milwaukee officials are ready for the city to take center stage in the 2024 election.
With Wisconsin viewed as a pivotal swing state, Milwaukee could deliver the decisive votes to decide the state’s winner. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit Monday morning against the city for what it alleges is improperly restricting observer access to polling places (detailed in a subsequent article).
Milwaukee, as it has in several past elections, is expected to finish processing and report its absentee ballots after midnight. Given the size of the Democratic-leaning city and its use of a centralized absentee-counting facility, the city’s absentee reporting will likely give a major late-night boost to Kamala Harris.
As they attempted to do in 2020 amidst a sea of conspiracy theories about ballot printing, late-night dumps and machine manipulation, city officials are attempting to explain to the public how the process works proactively. That includes emphasizing that the votes it will report last are almost entirely already in hand.
“As of this morning, we have over 105,000 absentee ballots,” said Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutiérrez in a press conference Monday morning. That includes 67,735 in-person early votes. Additional absentee ballots are expected to continue to arrive by mail or via drop boxes. “They will continue to come in until 8 p.m. on election day.”
There is a cap on how many ballots the city could receive back. According to Wisconsin Elections Commission data, the city has issued 113,487 absentee ballots. That’s down from the approximately 169,000 absentee votes cast in the pandemic-altered 2020 election. The city’s late-night absentee reporting in that election pushed Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump, which seen as suspicious by some supporters of Trump, who had spent that campaign demonizing absentee voting. In 2024, Democrat and Republican candidates alike have pushed for early voting, leading to the city surpassing Gutiérrez’s earlier estimate of 80,000 absentee votes in the city.