Preparations are well underway to make sure Election Day goes smoothly

MILWAUKEE, Wi (CBS 58) – Officials in Milwaukee and Waukesha County says they’ve spent quite a bit of time preparing for this day.

“Election officials are ready to deliver fair, accurate, safe, transparent elections to all voters”, says Meagan Wolfe, Wisconsin Election Commission administrator.

Wisconsin voters will have one last chance to head to the polls on Tuesday to cast their vote.

In accordance with state law, all early and absentee ballots will also be counted.

“Voters across Wisconsin have been voting absentee in unprecedented numbers,” says George Christenson, Milwaukee County’s clerk. “As of today, over two million absentee ballots have been issued, of which 91% have been returned.”

Milwaukee and Waukesha both use central counting.

“Central counting is when the absentee ballot is opened at a central location for each municipality,” says Julietta Henry, Milwaukee elections director.

On Election Day, there will be two numbers that need to be tallied to get the total number of votes.

One from people voting in-person and the other coming from absentee ballots at central counting.

“If unofficial results aren’t available until the next morning, it does not mean that something went wrong,” says Wolf. “It means that election officials are doing their job and their job is to make sure that every valid ballot gets counted.”

If, for whatever reason, there is a ballot that cannot be read because of a timing mark issue, there is a statutory process they will have to follow to fix that. Workers have also been trained in this process.

Officials say they will continue counting until every valid vote is counted.