A group that wants to examine all of the La Crosse County ballots from the June recall vote will have to wait until after the November election. County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer said her staff doesn’t have the time right now to accommodate Election Fairness’ open records request to do a hand count. Election Fairness made the request to all 72 Wisconsin counties July 2. The group’s attorney, James Mueller, did not respond to a phone call Thursday for comment. But he told the Janesville Gazette earlier this month they believe electronic voting machines could be faulty and vulnerable to tampering. They want to see if discrepancies appear between their tally and the machines’ tally.
“We can’t stop my office for this,” Dankmeyer said, “because we do have two crucial elections coming up.” The statewide primary is Aug. 14, the general election Nov. 6. As custodian of the ballots, Dankmeyer said she or her staff will have to show each of the 47,826 recall election ballots to the group, a process that could take days or even weeks. The county’s 2011 recount for the state Supreme Court justice race took nine days, she noted. The Government Accountability Board has advised only election officials handle the ballots so there’s no chance they might be altered. “We are going to have to sit in that room with them as they view each ballot,” Dankmeyer said.
Full Article: Group seeks hand count of ballots from June vote.