Milwaukee officials determined a ballot discrepancy of nearly 34,000 Saturday, following a citywide recount of ballots cast in the primary election last week.

After the manual three-day recount, City of Milwaukee Election Commission Chief Susan Edman announced a computer miscalculation was responsible for the inflated turnout of 80,064. The recount tabulated a turnout of 46,413.

According to a release from the Milwaukee Election Commission, the tabulation error was based on a double or triple count at polling places with multiple voting wards. Duplicated figures were reported in 198 of Milwaukee's 314 wards.

Based on a diagnosis from city officials, there is actually an extended gap of 135 votes between the hand count and the computer count. Edman partly attributed the gap to a loss of 101 ballots that were originally tallied on election night but have not since been located. City officials have started a search for the misplaced ballots.

The new count requires confirmation from county officials, but Edman said the isolated error did not affect the outcome of any race.

But Democratic candidate for Milwaukee Sheriff, Vince Bobot, contested the results, calling for a recount of specific votes, not just ballots. Bobot lost the Democratic nomination to incumbent Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr., in a relatively close race.

Yet Edman said the recount was in part to ensure public confidence in the election system. Milwaukee had already experienced highly publicized voting problems in the 2004 presidential election with reports of fraud and vandalism.

And election-day computer problems were not confined to Milwaukee.

"Two municipalities, including one entire town in Richland County and part of another town, were not included in the [Statewide Voter Registration System]," Kyle Richmond, public information officer for the State Elections Board, said in a previous interview with The Badger Herald. "But they made supplemental poll lists on paper, so if people showed up, they got to vote."

Richmond added the people not in SVRS were entered into the computer database post-election and that all election concerns will be addressed and resolved before November.

According to Edman, the programming error in Milwaukee has been fixed and will not be repeated in the general election Nov. 7.