Milwaukee replaces top election official six months before presidential vote
Source: The Guardian
Mon 6 May 2024 12.25 EDT
Milwaukee will replace its top election official with just under six months until the presidential election, the city’s mayor announced on Monday. Mayor Cavalier Johnson appointed Paulina Gutiérrez to take over as executive director of the Milwaukee election commission, replacing Claire Woodall who had served as the director since July 2020.
The change, first reported by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, means there will be a new head of elections in one of the most critical cities in a key battleground state. Milwaukee is the most populous city in Wisconsin and one of the places Donald Trump targeted as part of his efforts to overturn the election. Woodall did not immediately return a request for comment.
Gutiérrez “will lead the office at an important juncture when public scrutiny of the work of the department will be extremely high”, Johnson said in a statement. “I have confidence in her, and I will make certain the department has the resources it needs to fulfill its duties.”
It was not immediately clear why Johnson chose to replace Woodall. There were reports on Monday that it was connected to her decision to publicly criticize election employees after the office mistakenly sent the wrong ballots to voters in the spring. Ahead of the 2 April Wisconsin presidential primary, more than 200 voters in Milwaukee were mailed ballots marked for the wrong district – an error that Woodall attributed in strong terms to the staff of her office.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/06/milwaukee-top-election-official
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