MILWAUKEE — When many people went to bed Tuesday, President Donald Trump was leading in Wisconsin as precincts statewide reported unofficial election results but, during the overnight hours, that all changed when Milwaukee County delivered it's election results.
At around 4 a.m., county election officials were able to confirm that 100% of the county's votes had been accounted for and recorded for this election.
That was also the moment Wisconsin flipped from red to blue.
After counting absentee ballots for nearly 20 hours, the data from the City of Milwaukee's Central Count Location was loaded onto flash drives and escorted, by police, to the Milwaukee County Courthouse.
Executive Director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission, Claire Woodall Vogg, walked in the front doors and handed the data over to the county clerks office.
On those flash drives, 169,519 absentee ballots that were counted in the City of Milwaukee.
Those votes were added to the rest of the votes in Milwaukee County, which brought the total number of ballots cast to 460,300.
The county reports an 83.67% voter turnout, which election officials said was "very good for a presidential election."
When all of the votes were counted, just over 69% of Milwaukee County's vote went to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Just over 29% of the vote was for President Trump and Vice President Pence.
With Milwaukee County's totals added to the state's, Biden took the lead in the battleground state of Wisconsin Wednesday morning. A lead that President Trump held onto for most of Tuesday night.
The next step is canvassing to ensure each vote is recorded correctly.
"The process of the canvass is to verify that every single ballot that was cast is correct," said Julietta Henry, Milwaukee County Elections Director.
Election officials say the process was long, but that was expected.
In fact, they had hoped to deliver the results by 5 a.m. on Wednesday and made their announcement about an hour ahead of schedule.
They say the process can't be rushed because the goal is accuracy.