What if the ‘Succession’ Milwaukee election disaster really happened?
On Monday
By Derrick Rose
Click here for updates on this story
MILWAUKEE (WISN) — All roads lead to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Cream City and a fictional election disaster are the centerpieces of the latest episode of the hit HBO show “Succession.” In Sunday’s episode, it’s election night at the fictional ATN news network.
A fire at a Milwaukee ballot counting site adds to an already chaotic night for the show’s main characters. One hundred thousand presidential election ballots were reportedly destroyed.
“In like 1960 and in the year 2000, in 2016, these unbelievably close election moments kind of keep on coming in the U.S. So it felt legitimate to have another one,” executive producer Jesse Armstrong said in the “Inside the Episode” extra for HBO Max subscribers.
On Monday, Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Ann Jacobs tweeted her analysis of the scenario and explained on 12 News at 4 the show’s writers were accurate in their depiction of how Wisconsin elections’ “central count” systems work.
Jacobs said the episode incorrectly explained elections couldn’t know who successfully mailed in or submitted the absentee ballots burned in the fire.
“Our clerks, like the Milwaukee city clerks, are able to scan in the barcodes of all the absentee ballot envelopes that are received. They do that, and that immediately goes into the statewide computer system. So we know whose ballots have arrived pretty quickly after they come in,” Jacobs said in the live interview Tuesday.
This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
She said if there were an actual fire at a ballot counting facility and ballots were destroyed, a court would likely decide what happens to the voters who cast those ballots.
“My suspicion is we would wind up with some sort of amended deadline for resubmitting ballots or allowing people to vote,” she said. “That certainly would be my hope because if this were to happen, we wouldn’t want to see 100,000 people completely disenfranchised.”
There are only two episodes left in the final season of “Succession.” The next episode airs Sunday, May 21, on HBO and HBO Max.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
