All eyes – and cameras – are on Milwaukee during election seasons.
And a recent social media post by AJ Bayatpour of CBS 58 News showed the moment a City of Milwaukee election staff member made the error of pressing a wrong tabulator button to download voting tallies – a move that stalled election results by hours in a closely watched governor's race for the Aug. 11 primary election.
Less than a hour after the City of Milwaukee transported its absentee ballots on flash drives to the Milwaukee County Election Commission stationed at the county courthouse, officials revealed that a "human error" had occurred.
Paulina Gutiérrez, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, later said the "wrong button was pressed" during the downloading process at the city's Central Count center where all absentee ballots are processed and counted.
Gutiérrez said the error led to five of the nine flash drives downloading audit logs instead of the actual vote tallies.
The error delayed announcing election results until the early morning hours of Aug. 12. A top city official said the votes were accurately reported.
Screenshots of camera footage show the tabulator screen downloading the audit log about 10:19 p.m. on Aug. 11 — with the words "exporting audit log" displayed on the screen. The social media post shared additional images of options election staff could select on the tabulator screen when downloading that clearly note buttons to export files and export an audit log.
Gutiérrez and Nick DeSiato, chief of staff for Mayor Cavalier Johnson, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the photos. DeSiato deferred to the City Election Commission and directed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to an Aug. 12 statement about the incident.
Of the error, DeSiato previously said "not all human errors are the same" and said that an employee downloaded the wrong files by accident. The files are encrypted, which means it's not as simple as double checking to see if the flash drive has the correct file downloaded before being transported the county's courthouse, he said.
It is unclear which employee made the error. The city is not seeking displinary action against the employee who made the mistake.
The error saw one state lawmaker, state Rep. Scott Krug, who is a member of the Assembly Campaigns and Elections Committee, to consider a formal request to the committee asking Milwaukee election officials to provide an informational report of what went wrong and who was at fault for the human error.
Information provided by the election commission on Aug. 12 said that it "regularly reviews its election protocols and will continue to do so, including to determine whether any current procedures, staffing, or other practices should be adjusted in advance of the November election."
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Photos capture the Milwaukee election night download error