The Prosser campaign went on the offensive at the presser in hopes of keeping a state-wide examination of ballots, meant to ensure the true winner of the 10-year term on the state’s high court, from taking place at all.
As Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Patrick Marley reports Prosser campaign attorney Jim Troupis said, “We will take every and any step to prevent this frivolous matter going forward.”
In other words, they will do everything they can to block the verification of the unverified vote tally for a 10-year term on the state Supreme Court — despite state law which allows for such a verification if opted for by one of the candidates in such a close race.
“Reporters asked multiple times what grounds the Prosser campaign would use to object to a recount, given that state law entitles a candidate losing by less than 0.5% to request one at state and local expense,” writes Kleefeld. “When a reporter bluntly asked Troupis whether he would say what grounds would be listed in an objection to a recount, compared to what is in state law, Troupis simply responded: ‘No.'”
The article also quotes Prosser himself, in all his Orwellian wonder announcing, “This was a decisive election about judicial independence.” Then, just minutes later, the long-time partisan Republican who had, during the campaign, signaled his intention to help facilitate the political agenda of Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP state legislature, thanked his voters for their support of “the advancement of conservative values as the way to address and ameliorate our many problems.”
Talk about your “judicial independence”!…
As to the “decisive” nature of this election, Prosser, who had reportedly “lost” to Kloppenburg on Election Night by just 204 votes out of some 1.5 million cast across the state, received a stunning turn of luck when his former employee Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, announced the tally of some 14,000 additional votes from the city of Brookfield which she had failed to include in her Election Night totals, giving Prosser the lead in the contest by some 7,500 votes.
Nickolaus worked for Prosser when he was leader of the state’s Assembly Republican Caucus. Questions about the results of past elections in Waukesha, including some 20,000 more votes counted than “ballots cast” in 2006, are now being investigated by the WI Governmental Accountability Board (GAB), the body which oversees elections across the state.
The final canvass of all 72 counties in WI’s state-wide April 5th Supreme Court election gives Prosser a slim “decisive” margin of just 7,316 votes over Kloppenburg in a contest which the incumbent Prosser was predicted to easily win just two months ago, but which then grew into a proxy battle between supporters and detractors of the Badger State’s controversial new GOP governor and the dishonest “big government” tactics he used to legislate away the rights of citizens to collectively bargain with the state.
The Right currently enjoys a 4 to 3 majority on the state Supreme Court. A win by Kloppenburg might change the balance of the court as Gov. Walker’s controversial union-stripping measures are likely to face a challenge before the state’s Supremes in the coming months. Kloppenburg campaigned in the supposedly non-partisan race promising the very “judicial independence” that Prosser is claiming now that he believes he has won the election.
As The BRAD BLOG noted both when Kloppenburg was believed to be the “winner”, as well as ever since Prosser was announced to have taken the lead in the unverified vote count, that the vast majority of paper ballots cast in the state have been tabulated only by often-inaccurate, easily-manipuated optical-scan computer systems made by companies like Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia. After tally by op-scan in Wisconsin, paper ballots are not examined during the post-election canvass to assure the computer tabulation correctly reflects the will of the voters.
The Kloppenburg campaign has until Wednesday to decide if they wish to carry out the state-sponsored machine “recount” they are entitled, as Prosser’s canvassed (but unverified) vote count is just 0.488% higher than the hers. In order to have a state-wide hand count of ballots, as called for by a number of Election Integrity organizations, the Kloppenburg campaign would need to receive a court order, according to WI’s recount procedures [PDF]. In receiving such an order, the campaign would have to present evidence to show that a hand count of ballots was likely to change the final results of the election in her favor.
Related articles at The BRAD BLOG on WI’s 4/5/11 Supreme Court election…
4/15/11: Prosser ‘Wins’ WI Supreme Court Election by 7,316 Over Kloppenburg, According to Unverified Canvass
4/14/11: Waukesha, WI Follies: 97.63% Turnout in 2004? 20,000 More Votes Than ‘Ballots Cast’ in 2006?
4/14/11: ‘State Investigating Vote Irregularities in Waukesha County Going Back 5 Years’
4/11/11: ‘Democracy’s Gold Standard’ – A ‘Special Comment’ by Brad Friedman in the Wake of WI’s Supreme Court Election Debacle
4/8/11: WI’s Supreme Election Debacle (And What We Should, But Probably Won’t, Learn From It)
4/7/11:: Prosser Up by 7500+ in WI Supreme Court Race After ‘Database Error’ Discovered by Controversial Clerk in Republican Waukesha County
4/6/11:: WI Supreme Court Election Virtually Deadlocked, According to the Machines Anyway
It is, of course, far too late to stop Kloppenburg from caving… but has anyone pointed out to her the historical record of the machines screwing up as a good reason for a hand count?
Ok…good luck with that. Isn’t that what Vic Rawl did to the Democratic party leadership in S. Carolina with absolutely no results? I believe he presented evidence.
Seems like there is evidence aplenty with the Waukesha nutjob. However, probably none that would show that the election could swing in Kloppenburg’s favor.
Just asking here…is this Orwellian or what? How can you provide evidence of an election swinging the other way without a hand recount? And how can you get the recount without showing that the election would swing…(head hurts)
I didn’t read the entire manual, but it does say that you can amend your petition for a recount to take account of facts that come to light during the recount. I wonder if that would include evidence of ballot tampering or something else that would make a person want a hand count. I also recall that someone stated that even machine recounts permit observers to examine every ballot, which would allow what amounts to an unofficial hand count.
Was there any indication in the time between the initial report that all precincts had reported and Kloppenberg had won and the magical discovery of (apparently a few too few) unreported votes that Prosser was going to request a recount? That would be par for the course for a Republican to deny to others what he would claim for himself, but I just don’t remember if that’s what actually happened. Perhaps he knew there was a backup plan. Or not. After all, he’s a judge and above reproach. Ask him; he’ll tell you himself.
Has anyone asked the City of Brookfield’s clerk, Kristine Schmidt, why she inserted columns into the spreadsheet when she was told by Nickolaus not to alter the spreadsheet template? I don’t know if there could be any shenanigans in having a column in the wrong place, but it just seems odd to me that Brookfield would go an add a column just like the city of Waukesha did in 2006. What is it about being told not to do it that makes big cities in that county to do it? Or did Nickolaus have a special template made up for the cities (in each case) so that she could do shenanigans with the data herself?
Or have cooler heads prevailed that there wasn’t any wrongdoing with the column error? Will we hear anything from the GAB? Are they thorough?
ZapKitty @ 1 asked:
It has been tried. I might urge anyone else who wants to try as well to do so at: campaign@kloppenburgforjustice.com
There are so many WTF moments in this article, I hardly know where to start…
CK, perhaps I’m getting at the same thing as you from a different angle, or perhaps simply in different words, but what I was wondering is the following.
Assuming for the moment that the 14K bonus votes weren’t completely fabricated, did Kathy Nickolaus know the results of those votes before magnanimously stepping up to announce her error? Is there any kind of internal log kept for running the numbers? Even if easily hackable, shouldn’t someone look?
If it can be proven that she peeked, the implications are dark, indeed. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a chain of custody requirement for votes to avoid just such issues? One would think any votes violating that chain would be easily disqualified by a court challenge, at least in any sort of rational system, and the Republicans would have nobody to rationally blame but their own, for not having demonstrated personal responsibility in executing the most fundamental duty to a functioning democracy.
Yay, judicial independence. The independence to exploit partisan power to steal a friggin’ supreme court election and obstruct justice for your adversary in the process.
lora said,
exactly
This “logic” is exactly what the Superior Court in Riverside County in 2004 used when denying a challenger the right to see the documents that backed up the claim that a sitting member of the Board of Supervisors won a given election. The court ruled that the challenger would have to show the court that revealing the documents would likely change the outcome of the election! You can view a discussion of this incredible Orwellian court action on the outtakes included in the movie “Hacking Democracy”. Fricking unbelievable!
Catch 22
The best, and perhaps only, evidence sufficient to show whether the computers “accurately counted” or for that matter (engaged in counting) lies in the hand counting of the paper ballots.
WI election laws require proof without pointing to the evidence in which the proof may be attained.
A nation of technologically sophisticated idiots?
I sent an email to Kloppenburg, urging her to ask for a recount, and citing the 2006 Waukesha County election results. Maybe it will have some effect.
If we learned one thing for certain from Bush v. Gore, it is that when elections are decided by the courts rather than the people, it is democracy that suffers the most. Let’s hope that is not where this ends up.
from the article,
Prosser campaign attorney Jim Troupis said, “We will take every and any step to prevent this frivolous matter going forward.”
you notice they dont say any LEGAL means
how far down the rabbit hole we have slid….the counting of votes is now frivolous
i wonder if the court order requirement was put in by the gab or by legislation?
dear candidate,
count the ballots with human hands,human eyes watching,mathmatically the outcome could be changed with less than a 2 vote swing per precinct and those votes are available in the undervote
RE: Q: I wonder if the court order requirement was put in by the gab or by legislation?
A: Legislation.
WI Stats. 5.90(2), upon simplification to the case at hand, reads:
Candidate Joanne Kloppenburg may, by the close of business Thursday, April 21, 2011, petition the circuit court for an order requiring ballots under sub. (1) to be counted by hand or by another method approved by the court. Candidate Kloppenburg in such an action bears the burden of establishing by clear and convincing evidence that due to an irregularity, defect, or mistake committed during the voting or canvassing process the results of a recount using automatic tabulating equipment will produce incorrect recount results and that there is a substantial probability that recounting the ballots by hand or another method will:
A. produce a more correct result and
B. change the outcome of the election.
Isn’t doublespeak so obviously wise?
There must be 50 ways to leave our lovers who have taken us to the deep waters of no (election) return.
But I digress …
The modern election world:
My computer can kick your computer’s ass in an election…
More possible vote anomalies in Waukesha county.
http://goo.gl/PoJB8
Interesting article out this morning showing that in Waukesha county as the vote total for a particular ward increased the margin of victory for Prosser over Kloppenburg increased in a rather non-random way. Comparable partisan counties that overwhelmingly voted for Kloppenburg were however completely random when looking at these to voting characteristics. Don’t know what to make of it. I would think that this would be a good way to hide partisan votes in wards that had very high vote totals and had to use electronic voting and/or tabulation devices.
Hey Brad, did you see this? Supposedly uploaded to YT today.
“Programmer under oath admits computers rig elections”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385×574947
Here’s another try at the link… Programmer under oath admits computers rig elections
To both HankyDub and Runnerchk:
That is video of Clint Curtis’ testimony to U.S. House Judiciary Committee Democrats in 2004, after The BRAD BLOG broke his story way back when.
You can read the entire sordid affair, as we reported it over the years, here: https://BradBlog.com/ClintCurtis
Or watch the award-winning documentary on it all (in which I appear a great deal, but it’s a good film anyway), here: Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story
Figgered you must be aware of it since it happened in 04, just wanted to make sure.
Nuke em till they glow Brad!
I’ll bear witness that Brad carried the water in getting the story of Clint Curtis out there. That and my absolute certainty that something truly nefarious had happened in the 2004 elections to keep GWB in the White House was what brought me here in the first place.
Wow. I received that link to Clint Curtis’ 2004 testimony several times today from friends (unrelated to E.I.)
One with a sweet note that read, “I know you’ll wanna jump on this!”
I’m thrilled to see it getting circulated wide, it’s been online for years. Is it finally going viral? …
(And would like to *highly recommend* Dorothy Fadiman’s amazing thriller-doc MURDER, SPIES AND VOTING LIES: THE CLINT CURTIS STORY – linked above – starring our own Brad Friedman, one of the best films on election fraud to date. An entertaining yet mortifying way to catch up on this mess.)
Brad broke the Clint Curtis story in this 12/6/2004 exclusive which links to Curtis’s sworn affidavit in PDF format.
For those who haven’t seen it, here’s a trailer of Murder, Spies & Voting Lies.