Via Eric Kleefeld at TPM… “Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser held a press conference at the state Capitol on Monday, in which he declared victory in his reelection race — and at which his campaign advisers said they would object to any recount that might be requested by Prosser’s opponent, Assistant Attorney General JoAnne…
When Wisconsin voters flocked to the polls on April 5, one of the factors driving the high turnout was the State Supreme Court contest between incumbent Justice David Prosser and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. Prosser, whose term ends July 31, often casts the deciding vote on the seven-member court. He is a conservative Republican former Speaker…
The state’s investigation into vote irregularities in Waukesha County will stretch back at least five years, the head of the Government Accountability Board said Thursday. Questions over vote totals in Waukesha have lingered over the past week after County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced she failed to report more than 14,000 votes from the city of Brookfield…
Monday’s Wisconsin State Journal editorial, “State needs streamlined count,” calls for a website to fix our vote counting situation. Actually, Wisconsin needs to pay more attention to assuring that the vote count is correct. Wisconsin falls well short of having a reliable end-to-end system. We need to improve the method of appointing the members of the…
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin today asked state elections officials to review the Waukesha County vote tally in the 2006 state Attorney General election, after a liberal blogger pointed out there were about 17,000 more votes recorded than ballots cast. Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus posted an asterisk on the 2006 results on the county’s…
A full week after voters in Wisconsin cast ballots for the State Supreme Court in a volatile, topsy-turvy contest that had become a referendum on the state’s new Republican leadership, the state was still waiting for the final outcome. By Tuesday, Wisconsin’s top election monitors were investigating how more than 14,000 votes had been overlooked…
Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, under blistering attack by critics since an election night reporting error that temporarily reversed results of the Supreme Court race, on Tuesday rejected calls that she resign. “I will serve the remainder of my term,” Nickolaus said in a written statement. “I understand why people are upset and I am…
I’m still mulling over the recent Wisconsin election in general and the actions of Waukesha County’s County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus in particular. She was the one who forgot to record votes that would have made her former boss, Justice David Prosser, the winner in a hotly contested election. After my first report on this strange…
The Democrat on the Waukesha County Board of Canvassers who was widely quoted as endorsing the county clerk’s official ballot count that flipped the state Supreme Court winner last week said Monday that she was never told about more than 14,000 missing votes from the city of Brookfield until shortly before a Thursday news conference.…
On Tuesday night, I received a voice message from someone in the office of Clerk Kathy Nickolaus informing me of a Wednesday canvass meeting, which I returned the next morning and said I would be able to report into the canvass by noon – which I did. Normally the canvass would begin at 9am on…
The Wisconsin Supreme Court election that could affect a contentious union-rights law just got even messier. On Monday, the 80-year-old Democratic election observer who vouched for the conduct of the Waukesha County Clerk in the April 5 state Supreme Court race said she was kept in the dark and now isn’t sure what happened. Last week,…
Wisconsin’s already-fraught politics got even crazier last week when a bitterly contested, high-turnout state Supreme Court election ended in a near tie. Incumbent Justice David Prosser leads challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg by less than 0.5 percent, which means Kloppenburg has the right to a state-funded recount. We are probably headed toward a long, expensive, law-snarled process…
Justice David Prosser’s campaign said Saturday that it was open to a recount of votes in Waukesha County as the state Supreme Court race remained without a declared winner. “If you need to do a recount in Waukesha (County) and Waukesha (County) alone to satisfy heightened interest, that’s fine,” said Prosser campaign manager Brian Nemoir. “We…
The City of Brookfield submitted the election results from the April 5th Election to the County Clerk at 10:05 p.m. on April 5th and called the County to make sure they received the results and they were in the correct format. We were informed that they were received and in the correct format. The same…
In a dramatic turn of events on Thursday, the Waukesha County clerk announced that the vote total announced for Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race had been mistaken — and that the corrected numbers changed the outcome of the entire election. There were 3,456 missing votes for Democratic-backed challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg and 11,059 for incumbent GOP-backed…
When Kathy Nickolaus, the county clerk in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, spoke to the press on Thursday after revealing that she had failed to count more than 14,000 ballots in the hotly contested state supreme court election, one might have expected her to offer her resignation. Instead, Ms. Nickolaus blamed “human error” for the problem, which resulted…
Suppose the Democratic governor of Illinois had proposed radical changes in how the state operates, and suppose anger over those proposed changes inspired a popular uprising that filled the streets of every city, village and town in the state with protests. Then, suppose there was an election that would decide whether allies of the governor…
In a stunning development that instantly changed the race for the state Supreme Court, a county clerk’s error on election night added 7,582 votes for incumbent Justice David Prosser over challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. The additional votes almost certainly will give Prosser the victory in the heated race for the high court. As of early afternoon…
A recount and possibly a lengthy legal battle may be necessary to decide the closely watched Wisconsin Supreme Court race in which an incumbent conservative judge trails a liberal challenger, but the fight over what it all means has already begun. Democrats hailed unofficial counts showing JoAnne Kloppenburg with a razor-thin 204-vote edge over Justice…
A recount is all but certain in the race for state Supreme Court, which would pose a host of legal questions, raise the political stakes in efforts to recall state senators, ignite a new bout of political fundraising and further fuel Wisconsin’s ongoing battle over union bargaining. On Wednesday, nearly 20 hours after the polls…
A recount petition may be filed no earlier than the time of completion of the canvass and no later than 5:00 p.m. on the third business day following the last meeting day of the municipal or county board of canvassers determining the election for the office or referendum question or, if more than one board…
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Milwaukee-area voters went to the polls Tuesday but did not vote in the hotly contested state Supreme Court race, according to local voting results. And the issue of whether those people actually intended to vote for the high court could be a key factor in a looming recount that one…
Some voters have questioned whether provisional ballots could change the thin lead Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg holds over Justice David Prosser in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Calls to a few of the state’s more populous voting jurisdictions indicate that’s unlikely. Three provisional ballots were cast in the City of Milwaukee, according to an employee…
Voters headed to the polls after work could expect a wait. A larger-than-normal voter turnout locally and statewide has caused most polling places to run out of ballots. By the end of the night, turnout could run as high as 40 percent, said Fond du Lac City Clerk Sue Strands. “By late afternoon, we were…
In a move meant to lure boycotting opposition senators back to Wisconsin, the Republican leader of the state Senate threatened Monday to force a vote soon on a bill that is abhorred by Democrats: requiring people to show an ID at the polls. The push on the photo ID bill by Senate Majority Leader Scott…