An analysis of the City of Milwaukee’s 2020 U.S. Presidential election votes reveals several irregularities related primarily to voter participation.
Wisconsin is a key battleground state with 10 electoral college votes. In 2016, then first-time presidential candidate Donald Trump won the state over Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, taking a little over 47 percent of the state’s nearly 2.9 million votes.
While Trump held a lead throughout election day, Democrat nominee Joe Biden was declared the winner of Wisconsin Wednesday with 49.6 percent of the state’s nearly 3.3 million votes.
The gap between Biden and Trump is about 20,000 votes.
Wisconsin is one of the states that allow Election Day voter registration and also has a track record of voter fraud.
Wisconsin’s MacIver Institute reported in 2018 that there were almost 4,000 cases of likely voter fraud recorded by Wisconsin officials after the 2016 election.
Of the 368,392 people who registered statewide to vote on Election Day in November 2016, 10,461 postcards sent by the state to verify their residency came back as undeliverable.
MacIver’s report also said that in 2017 the Wisconsin Elections Commission mailed out 381,495 notices to people who hadn’t voted in four years, resulting in 351,733 registrations – 93 percent – being deactivated.
“Only 28,169 voters who were mailed the four-year notice asked for their registration to be continued, while 153,416 were returned as undeliverable, and 189,702 voters did not respond to the notice,” according to MacIver.
Additionally, voter record comparisons to DMV data after the 2016 election had 145,109 with conflicting information. Milwaukee alone had 22,359 voter mismatches, MacIver reported.
Milwaukee is Wisconsin’s largest city with a 2019 estimated population of 590,157, representing only about 14 percent of Wisconsin’s total votes, but having an eyebrow-raising registration rate of 93 percent of its population.
Milwaukee has 478 voting wards and, at the time of this report, the Milwaukee County Clerk website indicates that 100 percent of the wards have reported.
Milwaukee registered voters in 2020 number 550,132, representing a decrease from 2016 when registered voters were reported at 556,690, according to the clerk.
The number of ballots cast in Milwaukee the 2020 presidential election totaled 460,300, for a voter participation rate of 83.7 percent.
That’s an increase of nearly 4 percent over 2016, when 444,108 ballots were cast for a 79.8 percent participation rate even though the overall population decreased by about one percent over the four-year period.
According to the clerk, Biden took 317,251 or 69 percent of the votes, compared to Trump’s 134,355 or 29 percent.
If that data is correct, that would mean that Biden bested Clinton, who took only 65.57 percent of the vote over Trump’s 28.61 percent with the balance going to the other six candidate even though Trump won the state in 2016.
The data for Milwaukee, as reported by the clerk, has several irregularities and inconsistencies with how Trump and Republicans performed elsewhere.
The irregularities start with about 170,000 absentee votes that turned up in Milwaukee in the early morning hours that wiped out Trump’s 100,000 vote lead.
A deeper dive into the data also showed that of Milwaukee’s 478 wards, two reported more ballots cast than registered voters.
City of Milwaukee Ward 326 had 4 registered voters but 5 votes were cast 3 of which went to Trump and 2 for Biden.
Village of River Hills Wards 1, 2, 3 reportedly has 186 registered voters, while 1,266 ballots were cast.
And, that data keeps changing, if a report by the Milwaukee City Wire is any indication.
On Wednesday, City Wire reported as many as seven wards had more presidential votes than registered voters.
Voting results from 2016 still show at least two wards – City of Milwaukee Wards 130 and 187 – had a 139 percent voter participation rate with 1307 ballots cast by 969 registered voters and 101 percent with 538 votes cast by 531 registered voters, respectively.
In 2020, 93 wards had voter participation rates above 90 percent.
Also, 215 wards had voter participation rates above Milwaukee’s average of 83.7 percent.
Meanwhile, 278 of wards had voter participation rates in 2020 above the 2016 average voter participation rate for Milwaukee.
Trump beat Biden in only 45 of the wards, while he beat Clinton in 63 wards in 2016.
City of Franklin Ward 1 has only two registered voters with just one vote cast and it was for Trump.
Three wards have no registered voters.
The Trump campaign’s Bill Stepien announced on Wednesday afternoon that they will demand a recount.
“There have been reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of the results,” said Stepien.
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Laura Baigert is a senior reporter at The Tennessee Star.
