There were no major issues with absentee ballots statewide, but counting in Milwaukee and Kenosha was going slower than expected, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Elections Commission said.

The count in both southeastern Wisconsin cities should still finish tonight, Reid Magney said.

The state saw an influx of absentee ballots for the August election. As of this morning, 554,340 absentee ballots had been returned by voters with more than 905,000 mailed out. The deadline to return them was 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Milwaukee counts absentee ballots at a central location, and there was an issue with a machine that opens the envelopes they arrive in. That required workers to open them manually, which caused delays.

In Kenosha, Wisconsin National Guard members had to be redeployed from its central count office to a polling place to cover for a shortage of workers. Seven more Guard members were deployed to the central count facility to help out.

“We have had very few issues caused by voters not wearing masks, which are not required for voters,” Magney said. “A few voters have contacted us about poll workers not wearing masks, and we have been in contact with those clerks to let them know masks are required for poll workers because of the Governor’s order.”

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