The final audit of primary election results is still under way. To ensure accuracy, the Sussex County Board of Elections will spend the next few days “carefully and methodically” reviewing the numbers before sending the unofficial results to the county clerk for certification, Board Administrator Marge McCabe said. While Sussex County Clerk Jeff Parrott expects the…
Gladys Huber, an 80-year-old Mequon woman who has filed papers to run as a Democrat in the 8th Senate District recall election made an odd comment when reached by a reporter.
“I really have no comment at all,” she said. “I will refer you to the Republican Party of Wisconsin.”
State party officials did not return calls about Huber’s candidacy but they have been upfront about its intention to run Republicans as Democrats in an effort to give incumbent senators like the 8th District’s Alberta Darling more time to raise money and campaign.
The state’s Government Accountability Board said Friday that Huber has officially registered to run as a Democrat against state Rep. Sandy Pasch of Whitefish Bay. If both candidates meet the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline to file nominating petitions, a primary election would be held July 12 and the winner of that race would take on Darling on Aug. 9.
Wisconsin’s unprecedented recall elections could soon get even more complicated. A coalition of union groups active in state Senate recalls now advocates that Democrats field fake Republican candidates to run in primary elections against GOP state senators – just as Republicans are fielding fake Democrats to run against those who challenging GOP incumbents.
Friday evening, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin issued a statement that neither endorsed nor ruled out the idea, saying the party will “review the options available.”
The proposal from We Are Wisconsin, described in an email from Kelly Steele, communications director, was sent earlier Friday. The email argued that it was necessary to keep Republicans from hijacking the election process, and called on interested Democrats to contact the state Democratic Party and volunteer to run as Republicans in the districts of six GOP senators subject to recall elections.
A member of the Republican Party of Ozaukee County has surfaced as a possible Democratic candidate in the recall election targets Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills).
Gladys Huber, listed on the Ozaukee GOP’s website as a member at large — presumably of the county party’s executive committee — has filed a registration form to run as a Democrat against Rep. Sandy Pasch (D-Whitefish Bay).
The candidacy is part of the state GOP strategy — described by Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald — to run “protest” candidates against Democrats challenging six Republican senators in recall campaigns.
The Iowa Democratic Party today filed an ethics complaint against Republican Secretary of State Matt Schultz, alleging he used public resources to advocate against a candidate.
Schultz earlier this week issued a statement criticizing former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman for saying he plans to skip the 2012 Iowa caucuses if he runs for the Republican presidential nomination.
Democrats believe that Schultz’s release attacks specific policy positions of Huntsman and violates state law that prohibits the use of public money to advocate political purposes. Democrats filed their complaint with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.
Somerset County’s primary election polls may have closed Tuesday night at 8 p.m., but the results were not posted online until Wednesday morning.
With several county districts experiencing malfunctioning machines and a few close races (including a nine-vote difference in a Branchburg race), County Clerk Brett Radi explained, “I didn’t post them because we still had some ballots that needed to be added. I didn’t want to have results that didn’t reflect what was really going on.”
“We just didn’t do a final update, because we didn’t have the ‘emergencies’ [emergency ballots used when machines malfunction],” he noted.
It was late Tuesday night — hours after the polls closed for the primary elections — and some candidates still had yet to learn the final vote tally. That’s because municipal clerks in Monroe, Plainsboro, South River and Woodbridge, many of whom started their day at 5 a.m., clocked out without ever learning the unofficial results because of an issue with some of the voting machines.
“To work those kind of hours and not be able to give the candidates their results is frustrating,” Monroe Township Clerk Sharon Doerfler said.
In Monroe, four of the voting machines were printing illegible numbers that ran over the top of one another. Like every other municipality, Monroe’s poll workers received an emergency number to call in the event of a malfunctioning voter machine.
Due to a computer-software glitch, Montclair still didn’t have its Primary Election results as of Wednesday afternoon, and was doubtful about having them by the end of yesterday.
“A nightmare. Never had this happen before,” Township Deputy Clerk Carla Horowitz said Tuesday night as the township was struggling to tally the local results after a computer program went awry.
Late Wednesday morning, the Clerk’s Office still wasn’t able to get an accurate count of Montclair’s votes and the municipal Information Technology officer was away, so he couldn’t help.
“We worked on it this morning,” Horowitz said. “The program seems to be working a little bit better.”
Clark County’s Circuit Court has set a date and named a commission to recount the votes in the Democratic primary election for Clarksville’s Clerk-Treasurer.
Bob Leuthart edged out Gary Hall in the race to be the Democratic representative in November’s general election by 26 votes, receiving 880 votes to Hall’s 854 votes.
Past Cinderella’s curfew and beyond the target deadline for the Sussex County Board of Elections, a small gathering including Freeholder Rich Vohden, freeholder candidate Dennis Mudrick, acting County Clerk Jeffrey Parrott, Sheriff Michael Strada and two of Franklin Mayor Paul Crowley’s children waited for results of the Tuesday primary election. The unofficial results that never came.
Numbers appeared to be coming in smoothly for the first half of the evening. However, as charts displaying unofficial results flashed on the wall via a projector, watchers noticed the number of reporting districts changed, and not always in an upwards direction. According to the results, the number of districts reporting numbers were decreasing, and the number of Walpack votes totaled 61, though only 22 registered voters reside in the community.
Republicans have found a spoiler candidate to challenge Rep. Jennifer Shilling in this summer’s recall election, which would force a Democratic primary and extend the campaign by nearly a month.
James Smith, until recently a member of the La Crosse County GOP’s executive committee, says he is running as a protest candidate.
Smith, a regular fixture at local labor protests this spring where he held signs touting his support for Gov. Scott Walker, said he resigned his party leadership position Monday before announcing his candidacy. He said he does not plan on campaigning aggressively but wants to protest the recall process.
Legislation to return the date of the February presidential primary election to June was approved Thursday by the Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism and Historic Preservation Committee.
The bill , sponsored by Sen. Donald Norcross, D-Camden, would eliminate the separate presidential primary election held in February and require, instead, that it be held during the regular June primary election, as it was prior to 2005. The move would save approximately $11 million in fiscal year 2012, according to the Office of Legislative Services.
To appease the political national parties, leaders of the Delaware Democratic and Republican parties are seeking to push the state’s 2012 presidential primary back by nearly three months to April 24.
The primary is slated for Feb. 7, but the two major political parties are pressuring states to hold later primaries to keep the focus on the traditionally early states, said John Daniello, chairman of the Delaware Democratic Party.
The Iowa caucuses are set for Feb. 6, followed by the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 14 and the Feb. 18 Nevada caucuses.
Election boards in Pennsylvania’s 67 counties are poised to start recounting hundreds of thousands of ballots in a tightly contested statewide judicial primary race.
Secretary of the Commonwealth Carol Aichele on Thursday ordered a mandatory recount in the Democratic primary election for Commonwealth Court judge.
A new plan for to close Idaho’s primary elections and require voters to register by parties could still allow independents to cast a vote in primaries, though party leaders would have the final say on such participation. The chairmen of both the state Republican and Democratic parties say they’d welcome independent voters in their primaries.…