Certified vote totals, minutes and other details are available at the Government Accountability Board website.
With the weeks-long recount complete, unofficial numbers confirm that state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser narrowly defeated Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg in the April 5 election. But the battle may not be over yet, as Kloppenburg mulls whether to challenge the results in court.
And if a legal contest goes on long enough, attorneys say it could delay efforts to swear Prosser in for a new term on Aug. 1, leading to a temporary vacancy on the closely divided high court.
…Initially, Kloppenburg appeared to defeat Prosser by 204 votes. Two days after the election, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus announced she had not included about 14,300 votes from Brookfield, 76% of them for Prosser, in the initial tally she gave to the news media.
…Kloppenburg’s campaign has raised questions about torn ballot bags in Waukesha County. But Geske said a rip in a ballot bag would not be enough for a court to throw out the votes in that bag without more evidence to draw a reasonable inference that fraud had been committed.
If Kloppenburg did file a court challenge, state law would require Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson to name a reserve judge to hear the case. Geske said she expected Abrahamson and the reserve judge would both move swiftly, but even so, such a challenge would likely take months to resolve, particularly if it continued into the appeals process.
Full Article: Prosser wins recount in Wisconsin Supreme Court race – JSOnline.