Donald Trump won a clean and decisive comeback on Election Night, but there were some echoes of the chaotic 2020 election in Wisconsin, where officials had to recount 31,000 absentee ballots.
Tabulators in the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee were left unsecured, leading to a manual recount that delayed reporting in the swing state. The recount did not impact the outcome in Wisconsin, where Trump won by about 30,000 votes.
An election observer noticed that the doors on the tabulators were not sealed, leading the city to perform a recount "out of an abundance of caution."
“It’s just out of an abundance of caution. We have no reason to believe that there was any compromise to any of the machines,” city spokesman Jeff Fleming said.
Milwaukee finally delivered its absentee ballot count in the early morning Wednesday. While officials blamed "human error" for the delay, Republicans blasted the oversight as an unacceptable error.
"This is an unacceptable example of incompetent election administration in a key swing state: voters deserve better and we are unambiguously calling on Milwaukee's officials to do their jobs and count ballots quickly and effectively," RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chair Lara Trump said.
"Anything less undermines voter confidence," they added.
The results Tuesday night proved to be historic: President Trump swept the battlegrounds, including the "blue wall" states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, denying Kamala Harris her last line of defense in the Electoral College and securing his path to a second, non-consecutive term.
Trump's commanding victory - which is expected to carry over into a popular vote win - left Harris no option but to concede the race on Wednesday.
The election was wrapped up much faster than in 2020, when Joe Biden was declared the winner after nearly a week of counting mail-in ballots. Despite Trump's quick and decisive victory this year, Americans still do not know the winners of key Senate contests in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Nevada.
The Associated Press called Wisconsin's Senate race for Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin on Wednesday, defeating Republican challenger Eric Hovde. Republicans have flipped seats in West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio to regain a Senate majority.
The House of Representatives is still up for grabs, with many elections yet to be called in California. Ballot counting in the state, which has universal mail-in voting, could last weeks.
