Many voters went to sleep in Wisconsin and thought they woke up in Florida on Friday after a "Republican activist" county clerk announced that she discovered an extra 14,315 votes in a hotly contested Supreme Court race. Not surprisingly, the votes went to the conservative candidate giving incumbent justice David Prosser a 7,500 lead over challenger Joanne Kloppenburg. Oddly, 7500 was the exact number of votes Prosser needed to avoid a statewide recount.
The Supreme Court race has garnered national attention as a proxy vote on Governor Scott Walker's radical proposal to end collective bargaining in the state and cut a billion dollars from public schools.
Long Time Republican Apparatchik
The county clerk in question is long-time Republican apparatchik Kathy Nickolaus. Nickolaus got her start in GOP politics in 1995 when the Republican Speaker of the Assembly was -- that's right -- David Prosser. She worked for Prosser's Republican Assembly Caucus, one of four GOP and Democratic legislative groups that were shut down following a criminal investigation for illegal campaign activity on state time.
Nickolaus first came to public attention in 2001 when she was granted immunity from criminal prosecution in exchange for testimony against her bosses at the Assembly Caucus. The case resulted in unprecedented convictions of Democratic and Republican legislators on felony counts of misconduct in office and arranging for illegal campaign contributions. Both Democratic and Republican leaders were sentenced to jail time.
In the caucus, Nickolaus was the person who ran the numbers, creating databases for illegal donations, partisan mailings and the like. When she escaped criminal prosecution, she hightailed it to Waukesha where she ran for county clerk in the conservative county in 2002.
She later botched a 2006 vote and stirred controversy by placing the entire voting system on her own personal computer. Prompting the County Corporation Counsel to charge: "If she wants to keep everything secret, she probably can."
On Thursday of this week, she called a press conference to announce the new vote totals that put Prosser over the top and blamed "human error." She claimed that the canvass was a "open and transparent" process, yet she found the error at noon on Wednesday and sat on the information for 29 hours, not even telling top election officials at the Government Accountability Board. According to election observers, the issue of 14,315 additional votes from Brookfield was never discussed at the canvass. But, this information somehow made its way to right wing bloggers before her press conference.
Reaction Swift
Wisconsin Citizen Action has demanded that federal prosecutors step in, confiscate her computer and start an investigation. "In the current political climate in Wisconsin, only an investigation by a U.S. Attorney can be seen by all citizens of the state as independent and above politics," said Robert Kraig.
The Kloppenburg campaign has demanded "a full explanation of how and why these 14,315 votes from an entire city were missed." As part of the search for that explanation, the campaign plans to file open records requests for relevant documents.
Meanwhile, both Kloppenburg and Prosser have lawyered-up. Kloppenburg is being represented by Marc Elias, the attorney who handled Al Franken's U.S. Senate recount fight in Minnesota. Prosser is being represented by Ben Ginsberg, who served as national counsel to former President George W. Bush's campaigns in 2000 and 2004 and was central to the 2000 Florida recount.
Lessons from Bush v. Gore Florida Recount
The Florida recount is on the mind of many Wisconsin voters. The big lesson from the nightmarish "hanging chads" recount "is that you need a total statewide recount. If you only recount select counties the perception is you are only selecting counties that favor you," says Jay Heck, the head of Wisconsin Common Cause.
Heck issued a statement on Friday:
"The incredible and almost unbelievable events of the last two days with regard to the reporting of votes in the City of Brookfield in Waukesha County in Tuesday's election for the State Supreme Court warrant a full investigation by the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the District Attorney of Waukesha County. Furthermore, the Government Accountability should authorize and supervise a statewide recount of all ballots cast in Tuesday's elections and such a recount should be funded by the State of Wisconsin."
Why so many parties? Because this is the same constellation of offices that investigated the 2002 caucus scandal, giving voters more confidence that the manner was being handled appropriately and in a bipartisan fashion.
If Wisconsin is not to irreparably harm its reputation as a functional and relatively noncorrupt state, many cheeseheads believe that a statewide recount is a necessity.
Bush came up the winner in every Florida recount performed including that by the Washington Post.
I suggest this is not so clear, life in the good old USA would probably be different now....
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/when_the_votes_were_recounted_in_florida.html
No doubt more in Brookfield would lean toward Prosser, but nearly 12% more people voted in the Supreme Court race than voted in the Circuit Court race between Stilling and Carter, which was probably a more visible race over the long term. But what is also odd, almost 17% of the people who voted for Stilling (also a woman) did not bother to vote for Kloppenburg. 66% of voters chose Carter over Stilling, while 76% chose Prosser over Kloppenburg. Although Stilling was the incumbent, she had only been there since last summer (jul 2010, appointed by the dem. gov.). Then the strangest part is that the vote difference pushes Prosser's total just past the 0.5% threshold for a re-count.
http://www.longdistancevoter.org/files/voter_forms/Wisconsin_absentee_english.pdf
Perfectly describes her.
More than likely she did what she was told would "justify" the reconciliation of the count and said, "it jibed".
Liberals and Democrats are open minded and inspect everything we hear.....we don't just repreat what we are told.
At a time when apathy will have devastating effects, we sure don't need these sorts of shenanigans. The testimony of the ease of corruption of the electronic votes in Florida stings as every election voters worry and wonder if their vote REALLY counts.
Thank you. F&F.
Well, that's hardly the "only thing" that does. Constant vigilance, an unyielding respect for the truth, a vigorous commitment to defending fundamental rights, and complete willingness to stand up to would-be tyrants at every turn--especially, early in their hoped-for careers--are also necessary and important elements. But your point about the necessity for a paper ballot that can be examined after it's cast is certainly critical. On that score, you're absolutely right.
"Also at the press conference, Ramona Kitzinger, a Democratic member of the county board of canvass, agreed with Nickolaus and said they "went over everything and made sure that all the numbers jived up, and they did."
How old is Ramona Kitzinger? How technically literate is she?
You do know she, Romana Kitzinger the Democratic observer, is APPOINTED by the county clerk, aka Kathy Nickalous.
This is too important to leave up to a another group that does not have the knowledge or officail means to investigate this miscarriage of justice. Professional criminal investigators should be brought in immediately before MORE EVIDENCE IS DESTROYED!
Because this is bigger than Wisconsin. Wisconsin has clearly been the testing grounds for the new GOP agenda of using the billionaire funding (looking at you Koch Brothers and Bradly Foundation) to select a candidate, seed him with money and out of state support, put him in place and then turn him loose dismantling unions, state budgets, and local political placements in hopes of creating such trouble and such structural damage that they fancy they can cake walk into 2012 and then do this to the whole country.
Wisconsin is bigger than WIsconsin. It's the litmus test for how far they can go. "Oddly, 7500 was the exact number of votes Prosser needed to avoid a statewide recount". Yes. Of course.That is odd isn't it? Quite.
Count every vote. And investigate this former employee of Prosser and repeat offender in election
tamperingirregularities. It's important.No one has even remotely suggested that the AP is the arbiter. That premise is nonsense.
I'd add that you'd do well not to confuse possible felony election fraud with "shenaniganÂs". Those of us who live in Wisconsin don't see it that way, especially in the context of about half of us hoping to prevent--at the ballot box--a would-be dictator from taking complete control of our state. But how nice of you to uncritically take the word of a Democratic election official. (The adjective, incidentally, is "Democratic".)