Early voting update in Milwaukee

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- With one week to go before Election Day, Paulina Gutierrez, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, says the early voting is working as it should.

"I think we're in a good place," she said.

Gutierrez said the city planned for 80,000 people to cast an in-person absentee ballot. With about 63,000 having cast an early ballot as of Tuesday morning, voters are on pace with the city's projections, and they will hit that 80,000 projection by the time the early voting window ends.

By law, the process of counting those votes can't start until 7 a.m. on Election Day. Gutierrez says that count will take well into the night on Nov. 5. 

"We have created operational changes to keep the process flowing in central count on Election Day," Gutierrez said. "At the end of the day, we still ask the American public that it's going to happen sometime after midnight. Because we want to be secure, we don't want to speed that process. It's all about the integrity of the election and accuracy of the election."

With reports of ballot drop boxes being burned in Oregon and Washington, we wanted to know about drop box security in Milwaukee.

Gutierrez says the heavy steel construction of the boxes, plus the fact that they are monitored, discourages any vandalism or tampering.

"They are under 24-hour surveillance, and we have a really good relationship with law enforcement, we are constantly monitoring. If we find that there is more activity near the drop boxes, we will increase the pick-ups to keep that flow going," she said.

If a ballot or ballots were to be destroyed, Gutierrez says there are rules and procedures to make sure any affected voters can still cast a ballot.