Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning
• UPDATED 2:59pm PT with additional reporting from Brad Friedman
With 100% of the precincts now reporting unofficial results, Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg leads Justice David Prosser by a remarkably thin 204 votes out of some 1.5 million ballots cast in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race — according to the computers that count votes in the state.
The unofficial numbers at this hour, according to AP’s spreadsheet of those computer results, give Kloppenburg 740,090 votes to Prosser’s 739,886.
Despite Kloppenburg’s tiny reported lead, the race is virtual dead heat in what might otherwise be a little-noticed state Supreme Court election. The race, however, has been turned into a proxy battle between supporters of the state’s controversial new Republican Gov. Scott Walker (who Prosser has allied himself with) and union workers and their supporters who oppose Walker and the state GOP’s attempt to legislate away the freedom of citizens to collectively bargain through public worker unions. Outside groups, according to NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, are said to have spent a record $3.5 million on so-called “issue ads” to support their favored candidate in the closing days of the election.
For proponents of Election Integrity, there is both good news and bad in the Badger State. The good news: most of the state’s voters used verifiable hand-marked paper ballots to record their votes yesterday. The bad news: Those ballots are counted by easily-manipulated, oft-failed computers instead of human beings; 100% unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting machines are used by some voters with disabilities across the state; and, given close results, even if a hand-count of paper ballots occurs, as is likely, the number of votes cast on unverifiable DREs could end up being larger than the final margin between the two candidates — meaning that it will be, literally, impossible to know for certain who actually won the election…
WI has approved unverifiable DREs for use, usually by disabled voters who choose to do so, as made by Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia & Populex. Study after study — as well as in real-life elections — have demonstrated that the touch-screen systems made by all of those companies can be easily hacked. The systems are often unreliable, with a propensity for flipping votes both on the screen and invisibly inside the system, as well as simply failing to register votes at all on many occasions.
If, after a state-wide hand-count of paper ballots, the number of votes cast on DRE systems in the state is larger than the final margin between Prosser and Kloppenburg, the results will end up being 100% faith-based, with blind faith in the invisible ballots cast on Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia and Populex DREs being necessary to regard the election as legitimate.
Compounding the problem is that, while use of DREs in counties with paper ballots for most voters is usually quite low, many precincts across the state were said to have run short of ballots yesterday with the much higher than anticipated turnout. Some precincts, it has been reported (though not yet confirmed, as of now), were forced to direct voters to vote on DREs instead of on paper when ballots had run short.
On the brighter side of the equation, it is possible to verify who received the most votes at least where hand-marked paper ballots were used. Presuming the chain of custody for those paper ballots is secure (not always a safe assumption, naturally) a transparent public hand-count of those ballots should yield reliable results. Had they been counted by humans last night, at the precinct, in front of the citizenry and video cameras, before ballots were sent back to a central counting location — as per Democracy’s Gold Standard — chain of custody concerns would not have been as much of an issue.
Where optical-scan counters made by most of the same companies mentioned above were used either at the precinct or at a central location (for example, with absentee ballots) last night, the results reported at this hour are either accurate — or not accurate. Only a hand-count of those paper ballots, one that is likely to happen given the tightness of the race (and a statement this morning from Prosser’s campaign), can answer that question.
According to Wisconsin’s recount procedures manual [PDF], “ballots may not be hand counted without a court order,” as per Wis. Stat. § 5.90(2). That said, however, the procedures also allow “Each ballot shall be reviewed by the board of canvassers and may be inspected by the candidates or their representatives before being fed into the machine.” So a ‘virtual hand-count’, of sorts, can take place whether court-ordered or not, as we read the state’s rules on this.
In 2006, Wisconsin approved op-scan systems such as the Diebold AccuVote OS for use in the state’s precincts. That year, they also approved the use of the ES&S M100 for op-scanning ballots.
As The BRAD BLOG has previously reported the ES&S M100 scanner was found, according to a letter sent to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) by a county in MI, to have failed pre-election “logic and accuracy testing” in a number of cases. According to the same letter, the M-100 “reported inconsistent vote totals”, such that “The same ballots run through the same machines, yielded different results each time.”
The Diebold AccuVote OS is legendary for being simple to manipulate in such a way that only a hand-count of ballots can ensure that ballots tabulated on it were accurately recorded. The vulnerabilities of that system were startlingly revealed for the first time during a 2005 mock election in Leon County, FL which was captured on film and shown in the climactic final scene of Emmy-nominated 2006 HBO documentary Hacking Democracy.
In that test, the results reported by the Diebold system were the complete opposite of what the paper ballots themselves had recorded. Only a hand-count of ballots tabulated by such machines is able to reveal the true results of the election.
You can watch that remarkable landmark hack, as it happened in real time, in the scene from Hacking Democracy as posted below (appx 9 mins)…
UPDATE 2:55 p.m. PT: Relying upon the computer count, Kloppenburg declared victory, stating:
Raw Story is reporting less than 150 votes seperate them now, with dem counties still left to report.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2011/by_county/WI_Supreme_Court_0405.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS
3629 precincts reporting out of 3630
klop 739,589
pross 739,355
about an hour ago the ap showed 3627 precincts reporting..then they added 2 milwaukee precincts but thats not whr the numbers went up..milwaukee still reports 128,644 klop to 98,933 proccer
now i know every election official will say,nothing the ap has is official but since election officials hide their numbers from us the ap is all we have
ok now the totals r going backwards..lol
Wisconsin – County Vote Results Select Office————–Court_of_AppealsState_AssemblySupreme_Court————All Races
April 06, 2011 – 02:15PM ET (i) = incumbent = winner = runoff
Supreme Court – General
County Precincts D. Prosser (i) J. Kloppenburg
Total 3629/3630 739,043
50% 739,379
Wisconsin – County Vote Results Select Office————–Court_of_AppealsState_AssemblySupreme_Court————All Races
April 06, 2011 – 02:24PM ET (i) = incumbent = winner = runoff
Supreme Court – General
County Precincts D. Prosser (i) J. Kloppenburg
Total 3629/3630 739,505
50% 739,711
50%
ok going back up now
If the Corporations don’t demand a recount, then you know there is “Red Shift” in the Wisconsin vote… read hacking in the machines. They won’t want us to know how much they have stolden.
Karen and others watching results as they come in:
Please take screen shots of the numbers you’re seeing. They may be relevant later!
The statement this morning from Prosser’s campaign asserts:
One would hope that the only “opportunity” either candidate seeks is a hand-count of the ballots.
“With 100% of the precincts now reporting unofficial results, Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg leads Justice David Prosser by a remarkably thin 204 votes out of some 1.5 million ballots cast in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race — according to the computers that count votes in the state.”
Good job Wisconsin voters …
Kloppenburg declares victory
Sorry Dredd, I still have the same argument I have with Marybeth… scanners may be fast but are they always accurate? I want county workers (the citizenry counting) with citizen oversight. Cuz here comes the recount battle!
Can we quit wasting money already? WTF In this activated climate where is everybody?
That’s with paper ballots of coarse! 🙂
There will have to be a re-count with totals this close. Are the absentee ballots counted yet? Every time there is a close election a hand-count needs to be done, if I were a candidate I’d never trust a machine total. Since HAVA there is no election total that can be trusted.
brad said,
i wish i was as optimistic as you are about a virtual hand count being enough…i can just see klopps workers trying to keep a lil tally sheet and fitz dad(the head state cop) arresting her for hand counting w/o a court order(we have had candidates arrested before for simply trying to view the tallying process)…at this point klopp should be securing lawyers and finding a friendly(open and honest) judge to secure that court order for a complete hand count and audit(dbl checking the list of voters and numbers of ballots)
yesterdays battle was a sucess but i have been watching vote reports for long enough to know they are not done moving and with 3630 precincts all that “they” would have to do is move 1 vote for every 17 precincts and wooshbob prosser is back in power
Dead on, karenfromillinois! I share your concerns. They’re pitching for a fight.
…Brad, should Kloppenburg rush to certify? And…what are the certification procedures in WI?
In case you have not heard, almost 1200 votes magically appeared in Winnebago county heavily tilted for Prosser. Better than 70%. Prosser now is ahead by around 40 votes.
Let the games begin..what a travesty. The best democracy money can buy…how pathetic.
http://www.co.winnebago.wi.us/county-clerk/election-results
Election Results
WINNEBAGO COUNTY, WISCONSIN
NONPARTISON ELECTION
APRIL 5, 2011
FINAL UNOFFICIAL RESULTS
04/06/11
14:27:23
Num. Report Precinct 76 – Num. Reporting 76 100.00%
Justice of the Supreme Court
Total
Number of Precincts 76
Precincts Reporting 76
——————————————————————————–
DAVID T. PROSSER, JR 20701
JOANNE KLOPPENBURG 18887
Write-in Votes 52
mad,
ty for the info and if u are in wisconsin,there are a few things you can do to help(assuming u r a klopp backer and not a walker backer just rubbing it in..lol)
foia the lists of voters(per precinct)
foia the precinct tapes
foia the tapes from the dre(per precinct)
foia the ballots delivered,returned receipt(per precinct)
get familiar with the precinct maps
call that county clerk and ask whr those ballots were “found”
Yes,
This proves the old canard “the people who vote decide nothing, the people who count the votes decide everything”
No matter who said it or thought it … it is true.
true words dredd
this site is doing a good job of watching the changes from the ap reports
http://elections.wispolitics.com/
Thursday, April 7, 2011
4:56 PM: Waukesha County clerk calls 5:30 p.m. news conference
The Waukesha County Clerk planned a 5:30 p.m. news conference today to discuss its vote totals amid reports that it failed to include the votes for Brookfield in the results it sent The Associated Press on Election Night.
It could represent a more than 7,000-vote swing in an election that whipped back and forth this afternoon as county canvass totals came in.
Brookfield City Clerk Kris Schmidt said she sent her numbers to the county clerk’s office Tuesday night that showed David Prosser with 10,859 votes and JoAnne Kloppenburg with 3,456. She said those numbers did not change in the postmortem she did after the election.
“I have no clue what’s going on. she said. “No one has officially told me what’s going on.”
Thanks karenfromillinois and Dredd.
What we all know: Republican operatives will do anything to steal (throw) an election. Voters of WI have a right to witness a hand recount of paper ballots as soon as possible. That is, ALL the paper ballots. No deadlines. Then obtain all record of write-ins and DRE votes and have an expert analyze those votes.
I live in FL and I firmly believe the GOP has stolen many elections in this state, including 2 for George Bush, 2 for Jeb Bush and the current travesty Gov. (ugh) Rick Scott, who “won” by a slim 60,000 votes. This guy is a crook and a disaster for this hurting state! I want a hand recount to get to the bottom of a race that polls one day prior to election showed Dem. Alex Sink to win!