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>> Thanks. Nice to be here.
>> Issues continue to crop

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up in Milwaukee's late
night ballot counting

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process, this time further
delaying the results of the

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election for a national
audience. How Milwaukee

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counts its ballots has been
the subject of scrutiny for

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years. As the largest
county in the state, it has

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the most absentee ballots
to process before those

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totals are reported, often
leading to what people call

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a late night ballot dump
and adding fuel to election

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conspiracy fires. In a
press release, the

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Milwaukee Election
Commission reiterated that

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what caused the delay had
no impact on the results.

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Alexander Shur, a vote
reporter with Votebeat,

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watched the scene unfold
and he joins us now. Thanks

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for your time today.
>> My pleasure. Thanks for

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having me.
>> So the issue occurred at

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the central count, but this
wasn't with how they count

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the ballots. This was at
the end of the night

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getting the results. So
kind of walk us through

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what what went wrong and
what you were seeing as it

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happened.
>> Yeah. So I'd say broadly,

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what happened on Tuesday
was 15 hours of nearly

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flawless processing and
counting in a way that

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actually was more efficient
than past elections, being

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capped off by a really
simple and regrettable

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error. So essentially, all
these ballots are counted.

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I think Milwaukee counted
about 28,000 by the end of

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the night. And then the
last step before you send

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results to the counties,
you need to extract those

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results from the tabulators
that count all the ballots.

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So on Election Day, there
were nine tabulators. And

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typically an election
official goes to each

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tabulator and they follow a
checklist, or at least they

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had in the past in
Milwaukee. And it takes

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about ten minutes per
tabulator. It adds a lot of

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time at the end of the
night, but it also ensures

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uniformity. And what we saw
on Tuesday was took about

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ten minutes to download.
Results from the first

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tabulator took maybe 5 or 6
minutes from the second,

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and then all of a sudden it
was taking 2 to 3 minutes

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to download results from a
tabulator. And it wasn't

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just one election official
doing it, they were

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dividing up into teams. So
one, from what I had gotten

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used to as somewhat of a
slow, tedious process, it

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got really quick. And in
hindsight, it just simply

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takes more than 2 or 3
minutes to download results

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from a tabulator. The
reason that it went from 10

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minutes to 3 minutes was
they were clicking the

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wrong button. They were not
downloading election

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results from from five of
the nine tabulators at the

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at the city absentee ballot
processing center.

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>> So just to clarify,
there's no evidence of

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malfeasance or tampering or
fraud. But that didn't stop

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the conspiracy theorists
from immediately jumping

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all over this on the social
media. Right?

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>> That's exactly right.
And I think they saw it, as,

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you know, a way for the
city or the state to to rig

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the gubernatorial primary
against Francesca Hong, no

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matter that Crowley was on
top, you know, before this

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so-called ballot dump, no
matter that their, you know,

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ballot images and audit
logs and a paper trail

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tracking every single one
of these ballots. You know,

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I've been saying, for
better or worse, what

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happened was evidence that
elections are run by humans

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and sometimes they make
mistakes when you know

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they're on a lack of sleep,
or there's not the

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checklist that should be
guiding them in front of

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them.
>> So many have been

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calling for a change in
state law that would allow

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Milwaukee and other central
count operations to start

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counting those absentee
ballots and processing them

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on Monday before the
election. So we're not

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waiting until late in the
night. One of the champions

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of that has been a
Republican who has pushed

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to try and get that bill
through. It got killed in

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the state Senate,
unfortunately. But even he

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has concerns and wants to
hear testimony. Right. So

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how will this unfold as
people ask more questions?

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>> I mean, I think a really
common rebuttal for past

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legislative efforts to pass
this Monday processing bill,

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was this talking point
about among Republican

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legislators that we can't
trust Milwaukee with an

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extra day if they're only
making errors on, you know,

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they're all they only have
one day and they're already

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making errors. Why should
we let them do this on

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Monday? However, you see
the logic of that talking

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point every time they make
an error sort of undermines

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this mission to pass Monday
count. So as you pointed

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out, you have Scott Krug,
who's a very staunch

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supporter of this Monday
processing bill. And every

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time he sees Milwaukee make
a mistake like this past

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Tuesday, just he knows that
is that makes his case

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significantly harder
because now you have this

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state state legislators
looking at the city as a

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flawed election
jurisdiction. At the same

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time that the city is
asking for more time to

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count and process ballots.
>> Yeah, and just a few

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seconds left. But give me a
sense of what it's going to

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look like in November,
because I know this is the

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city of Milwaukee, but
people are going to

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conflate David Crowley as
the Milwaukee County

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ballot balloting totals
coming in are going to have

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even more scrutiny in the
fall, right?

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>> It's possible. I mean,
every I think no matter

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what Milwaukee does, even
if they run a flawless

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operation, they're going to
be scrutinized. If they

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make a single mistake and
they know this, it's going

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to just lead to an absolute
blow up in conspiracy

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theories, especially if
Crowley emerges as the

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candidate. So I think all
of the pressure is on them

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to to run this flawlessly
in November.

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>> All right. Alexander
Shur with Votebeat. Thanks

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for your time today.
>> Of course. Thanks for

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having me.
>> The fatal shooting of 38