Milwaukee’s new election chief knows her office is under scrutiny, but she’s ready

MILWAUKEE (AP) — As election officials across the country boost security ahead of November’s election, the leader of one of the most intensely scrutinized offices in a presidential swing state said it’s not personal threats or worries about conflicts at the polls that keep her up at night.

It’s the little things that could loom large once voting begins, the day-to-day logistics of making sure everything runs smoothly at 180 polling sites in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s largest city, from ensuring there are enough ballots to having a sufficient number of poll workers.

“Being a new election administrator is a big challenge,” Paulina Gutierrez said at Milwaukee’s elections center as workers prepared to meet Thursday’s deadline for mailing absentee ballots. “This is a huge operation of logistics and ensuring, ‘Have we covered everything?’”

Wisconsin is one the major political battlegrounds that will help decide the presidency. It is also one of the states where former President Donald Trump disputed his loss four years ago and where some of his most loyal supporters served as fake electors to challenge the outcome. The pressure on election officials is immense, especially in large, Democratic strongholds such as Milwaukee, which have been the focus of false claims by Trump of election wrongdoing in the past.

Adding to the pressure on Gutierrez is that this year’s presidential election will be the first major election she will oversee. With early voting nearing, she’s undaunted.

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