No, an early morning influx of Milwaukee votes doesn't prove the Wisconsin Senate race was stolen

Multiple news organizations called a Wisconsin U.S. Senate race for the Democratic candidate Nov. 6.  Six days later, the Republican candidate acknowledged his loss but did not concede and instead cast doubt on the legitimacy of the results. 

By the time Republican challenger Eric Hovde spoke out following days of silence, social media posters had already fueled claims that a 4 a.m. influx of Wisconsin votes proved that Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin stole the election from Hovde. 

"Once again, a 3:30am ballot dump lost us a critical race in Wisconsin," the X account End Wokeness posted Nov. 11 along with a graph showing Democratic votes overtaking Republican votes around 4 a.m. on Nov. 6.  

Conservative commentator Benny Johnson soon reshared a screengrab of the X post with his own all-caps caption: "Expose the fraud!!"

Soon, social media posts were also sharing snippets from a video Hovde released Nov. 12.

"Wisconsin Senate seat was stolen!" read overlay text in a Nov. 13 Instagram video showing a clip from Hovde’s video. "Milwaukee county again steals another election." 

"I was shocked by what unfolded on election night," Hovde said in the attached video. "At 1 a.m., I was receiving calls of congratulations and based on the models, it appeared I would win the Senate race. Then, at 4 a.m., Milwaukee reported approximately 108,000 absentee ballots, with Senator Baldwin receiving nearly 90% of those ballots. Statistically, this outcome seems improbable, as it didn’t match the patterns from same-day voting in Milwaukee where I received 22% of the votes."

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

(Screenshots from Instagram)

These claims are inaccurate. Wisconsin election experts told PolitiFact that this early morning influx of ballots was expected — and they not only don’t signal anything nefarious, they resulted from adherence to the law. That’s because state law does not allow election workers to process absentee ballots before Election Day — despite a bipartisan push to change that law earlier this year.

The claims echo falsehoods about the 2020 election, which included the same criticisms of Milwaukee’s early-morning absentee ballot influxes.

"This is something that everybody who’s familiar with elections in Wisconsin understands will happen," said Jay Heck, executive director of the public advocacy group Common Cause Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is one of two swing states — and one of seven states total — that does not begin to process absentee ballots before Election Day, he said. 

The 4 a.m. influx of absentee ballots was "only indicative" of that, said Claire Woodall, a senior adviser at Issue One, a group advocating for transparency and clean government. 

"The ‘influx’ in the results was reflective of the number of absentee ballots that the City of Milwaukee tabulated and were known to still be outstanding at 8 p.m. on Election Night," she said. 

Woodall, who served as the City of Milwaukee’s Election Commission executive director from 2020 to 2024, wrote in an email that "results from Milwaukee’s Central Count have come in between 12 a.m. and 4 a.m. every Presidential Election due to the restrictive state laws."

Milwaukee Central Count’s high speed tabulators also do not report "partial reports," so the results of the ballots counted there are "delivered in one fell swoop," Woodall said.

"All results must be exported onto encrypted flash drives and hand-delivered to Milwaukee County," Woodall said. "This process cannot be completed until 100% of the absentee votes have been tabulated." 

As Milwaukee absentee ballots were tabulated Nov. 5, someone noticed that doors on the tabulator machines were not fully secured. After consulting with Republican and Democratic officials, the Milwaukee Election Commission said it would restart tabulation at central count to be "fully transparent" and "to eliminate any doubt." 

Ann Jacobs, chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said in a series of Nov. 5 X posts that the tabulator machines were zeroed out and the previously tabulated ballots — about 34,000 ballots — would be rerun through the machines. 

Featured Fact-check

Eric Hovde

stated on October 18, 2024 in TV debate

Ballot drop boxes 'were only used for a pandemic.'

Tabulation so far. However, in the interest of transparency and so that people can have confidence in the tabulation, the decision was made to re-tabulate the ballots run through so far. That’s about 34,000 ballots give or take. So the machines are being zeroed out, and 2/

— Ann Jacobs (@AnnJacobsMKE) November 5, 2024

When mistakes happen, officials should "acknowledge them, fix them" and explain them, she wrote, adding: "So sorry my friends, it will be a very late night here in beautiful Milwaukee." 

A Milwaukee Election Commission statement said the city had "no doubt regarding the integrity of the election." As of Nov. 11, the commission’s updated statement said Milwaukee’s Board of Election Commissioners had certified the general election results. 

After Hovde mentioned Milwaukee’s 4 a.m. election results, city election officials rebutted his claims in a Nov. 11 Instagram post. 

"It is both expected and routine that absentee ballots — over 100,000 in this case — are counted and reported in the late hours of Election Night due to Wisconsin’s high voter turnout and the rigorous verification standards the MEC upholds," the Election Commission wrote. "Unlike states led by both Republicans and Democrats that permit absentee ballots to be processed ahead of Election Day, Wisconsin does not, which can result in the reporting of large numbers of absentee ballots late at night." 

The Milwaukee Election Commission called Hovde’s claims "baseless" and said it was "fully confident" that his claims lacked merit. 

Instagram posts claimed a 4 a.m. "ballot dump" in Milwaukee showed the Wisconsin U.S. Senate election was stolen from the Republican candidate.

In Wisconsin, election officials can’t process absentee ballots early, so experts say it is routine for an influx of absentee ballot votes to be reported late at night or in the early morning hours after Election Day. Because of an error noticed during tabulation, Milwaukee also tabulated more than 30,000 ballots, further delaying the city’s election results. 

Election experts rebutted claims that the 4 a.m. influx of results signaled election fraud or malfeasance. 

We rate this claim Pants on Fire!

RELATED: No, it’s not suspicious that Democrats won Senate races in states Donald Trump won

RELATED: Yes, slow absentee count explains supposed "ballot dump" in Milwaukee