On Wednesday, Wisconsin’s Asst. Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg announced that she will be exercising her right to file for a statewide “recount” following the April 5th election for state Supreme Court against the incumbent Justice David Prosser. She also said that she intended to ask for a special investigator to be named to look into a number of still-unanswered questions about election results that were misreported by Waukesha County’s Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, a former employee of Prosser’s when both served in the state’s Assembly Republican Caucus.
Kloppenburg’s complaints have now been filed, and The BRAD BLOG has been reviewing both them, and several additional points of note since yesterday’s dramatic presser, in advance of the count which is scheduled to begin next Wednesday, April 27, according to the WI Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), the state’s top election agency.
Details included in Kloppenburg’s request for a special investigator in Waukesha — including the curious point that Prosser “was observed entering the Governor’s Office late in the evening and attending a private, one-on-one meeting with Governor Scott Walker” on the night following the election, on the very same day in which the controversial new GOP Governor publicly stated that there might be “ballots somewhere, somehow found out of the blue that weren’t counted before.” — are certainly compelling.
Moreover, information and questions about the “recount” process itself have naturally emerged — including a noteworthy, video-taped exchange between a citizen activist and the head of the G.A.B. on Wednesday, as well as concerns about which districts will hold court-ordered hand-counts, and which will simply run ballots through oft-failed, easily-manipulated optical-scan computers again (or worse, simply push a button to produce the same printed reported by the same 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting machines)…
WAUKESHA INVESTIGATION: The Call for a Special Investigator
The Kloppenburg campaign’s request to the G.A.B. that a special investigator be appointed to look into whatever malfeasance or misfeasance may have happened in Waukesha County is a compelling one. As you likely know by now, on Election Night, Kloppenburg was reported to be ahead of Prosser by a razor-thin 204 vote margin out of some 1.5 million cast. The election itself had become a referendum for Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial legislation removing a great number of rights for state employees to collectively bargain with their employer.
Two days later, on April 7th, in a 5:30pm press conference, Clerk Nickolaus announced that she had left some 14,000 votes from the city of Brookfield out of her Election Night tallies as given to the media. With the additional votes from Brookfield, Prosser gained the unofficial lead by some 7,500 votes. After the post-election canvass was completed in each of WI’s 72 counties late last week, Prosser’s lead was 7,316 votes — or 0.488% — over Kloppenburg, entitling her to a state-sponsored “recount” since the margin was less than one-half-of-one-percent.
Though The BRAD BLOG was among the first to note that those 14,000 Brookfield votes seemed to be legitimate (not necessarily the unverified results themselves, but the existence of the votes), as they were independently reported by a local media outlet in Brookfield on Election Night, many questions persist in regard to what happened, why they were not reported by Nickolaus initially, and why it took her a full two days to notify anybody — and only via a press conference — about what she described as “simple human error”.
We’ve also detailed (see here and here) a fair amount, though not all, of Nickolaus’ checkered history as an election official, as we’ve been following her various failures — such as keeping election results only on a personal computer in her office where they cannot be overseen — for the better part of the last year.
The Kloppenburg request for a special investigator to be appointed by the G.A.B. is based, upon other things, on evidence that the board has a conflict of interest in investigating County Clerks since they, “by necessity, have frequent interactions with all of the county clerks relating to elections.”
“It is natural that these frequent professional interactions develop into friendship and a mutual trust between GAB staff and the county clerks,” the Kloppenburg complaint states. “The GAB staff have a legitimate business need to maintain their close working relationship with all of the county clerks. This need conflicts directly with the need for a thorough, objective investigation into a county clerk’s possible misconduct, abuse of discretion, and violations of state law that could result in civil or criminal sanctions.”
The complaint highlights a number of friendly emails to Nickolaus from both other County Clerks across the state, as well as from members of the G.A.B. following her admission of “human error” in the original tallies.
The relationship between the G.A.B. and the clerks, as explained by Kloppenburg’s campaign attorney, “undermines the Government Accountability Board staff’s effectiveness and credibility in conducting an investigation into Ms. Nickolaus’ actions relating to the spring election.”
As to their specific reasons for requesting a special investigation in Waukesha, the request for a special investigator, filed on behalf of the Kloppenburg camp by campaign manager Melissa Mulliken, is a great read. Here are the facts it lays out “Relating to Nickolaus’ Performance of Election Duties for the Spring Election Held on April 5, 2011”, in regard to her stunning April 7th press conference announcement giving Prosser a 7,500 vote lead…
Most importantly, why did Nickolaus take so long to notify the Board of Canvassers or the G.A.B. following her discovery of the previously unreported votes?
As to the fact that word of the previously-unreported votes from Brookfield were reported, somehow, by “Conservative media outlets” before Nickolaus’ presser and, apparently, before either the Canvassing Board or the state’s G.A.B. were notified, that is also a question very much worth investigating. Indeed, we also heard about the news in advance of Nickolaus’ April 7th evening presser from a rightwing blog site.
And then, what to make of that private meeting between Prosser (who, during the campaign, promised to “act as a common sense complement to both the new administration and [GOP] Legislature.”) and Walker on the night after the election — on the same day Walker, Prosser’s old Republican colleague from the Assembly, felt confident enough to announce that there might be “ballots somewhere, somehow found out of the blue that weren’t counted before”?
Was the meeting proper? A sitting Governor can meet with a sitting Supreme Court justice, I guess. But if Barack Obama had a private meeting with Justice Sotomayor (and no other justices) and failed to explain the reasons publicly, would the public have the right to, at the very least, know what the meeting was about? Of course. And an explanation for the Prosser/Walker meeting, if it occurred as described in the Kloppenburg complaint, should be ascertained by whoever investigates this matter on behalf of the G.A.B.
[Update 4/22/11, 1:32pm PT: Prosser vehemently denies a private meeting with Walker, according to Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel.]And on Nickolaus’ storied history of problems as both an election official in Waukesha and, prior to that, as a Republican staffer working for the state Assembly, the Kloppenburg complaint summarizes her remarkable string of known failures this way…
Quite a record.
For the summary of the specific felony violations the Kloppenburg campaign is alleging Nickolaus may have committed in the wake of the April 5 election, see their full complaint…
THE ‘RECOUNT’: Preserving the Evidence
A bit of late good news here, in what might have otherwise been a disturbing start to next week’s statewide recount. On Thursday, the G.A.B. filed for a declaratory judgment from the circuit court [PDF] requesting permission to erase ballot programming and election results from memory cartridges used with the ES&S Optech Eagle optical-scanner system in 31 counties where those systems are used to scan paper ballots, so that they can be reprogrammed for use in the “recount”.
In Wisconsin, unless an order for a hand-count is obtained from the court, the “recount” process involves scanning the same paper ballots (where they exist) through the same optical scanners used to tally them originally on Election Day/Night.
The G.A.B.’s request to the court explains they have “been advised that the memory cartridges no longer are manufactured, insufficient memory cartridges are available from the manufacturer or other sources, and the counties that will use the Optech Eagle for the recount have insufficient reserve memory cartridges in addition to the ones which were used in the April 2011 spring election, which contain the record of the votes cast.”
Under state law, those cartridges may not be cleared for 21 days following the election. In truth, those cartridges should be kept for at least as long as paper ballots and other materials are securely maintained. (In federal elections, ballots and others materials are supposed to be retained for 22 months following the election though, incredibly, memory cards are routinely scrubbed in short order after elections are certified, despite years of our imploring otherwise here.)
So, since memory cartridges will be needed for scanners where ever machine “recounts” will be performed, and since extras are not available as the cartridges are no longer manufactured, the G.A.B. must receive permission to wipe them clean so, as per WI’s recount procedures [PDF], the cartridges and machines can be reprogrammed to tally just the one race being contested during the “recount”.
This, of course, underscores yet another absurdity in using these types of computer systems in our elections. If the contest — via machine re-tally or hand count — demonstrates that the optical scan systems tallied ballots incorrectly on Election Day, the forensic evidence necessary to determine whether the mistally was due to either malfeasance, misprogramming or malfunction will likely have been destroyed in the process of clearing the memory cartridges for use in the post-election contest.
The good news is that late on Thursday, according to WisPolitics (and then confirmed by The BRAD BLOG with the Kloppenburg campaign directly), both the Kloppenburg and Prosser camps have “agreed to a hand recount in parts of 31 counties to avoid having to erase data on the original Election Day returns now stored on voting machines. … The deal includes 34 municipalities in Waukesha County.”
And now the not so good news: “For the rest of the state, a machine recount will be used.” In those areas, the ballots will simply be fed back through the op-scanners. However, state recount procedures allow that campaigns may examine each ballot before it’s fed through the machine which could amount to a “virtual hand count” of sorts — at least where paper ballots exist.
Meanwhile, across the state, 100% unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems are also used, mostly for optional use for disabled voters, but also in the case where paper ballots may have run out on Election Day, as they did in a number of districts across the state on April 5, due to higher than expected turnout.
While so-called “Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trails” (VVPATs) are printed along with the votes cast on those systems in Wisconsin, the fact is, those VVPATs are usually not verified for accuracy by voters before the electronic ballots are invisibly cast and, in any case, the VVPATs can also be gamed. (See this video from UC Santa Barbara’s Computer Security Group showing just one way to do so, in a video created for the state of California’s “Top-to-Bottom Review” of electronic voting systems in the state). Thus, even with the so-called “paper trail”, votes cast on those systems are 100% unverifiable.
But to make matters worse, WI’s state code allows that “recounts” on DREs do not include an examination/count of the printed VVPATs. Rather, the results from DREs are simply “re-tabulated ” by the same electronic system. The button is pressed again, the same report is printed. Garbage in, garbage out.
We have advised the Kloppenburg camp, while we were confirming the hand-counts in those 31 counties, that the preferred — albeit highly imperfect, for reasons mentioned above — procedure to deal with “recounting” those DREs, would be to count the VVPATs by hand. They’ll likely have to receive a court order to do it, however. Another printout from the same machines is largely meaningless and illustrative of absolutely nothing.
Either way, in the end, if the margin of votes separating winner and loser, after the contest is complete, is lower than the number of votes cast on the touch-screen systems, we’ll never know who actually won or lost with certainty. That’s just one reason such systems are antithetical to democracy, and should never be used in any election.
Lastly (or almost) for now. Wisconsin activist Katy Reeder caught up with Kevin Kennedy, Director and General Counsel of the G.A.B., on the streets of Madison on Wednesday and had a very interesting conversation with him, as caught on video tape by Jeremy Ryan of Defending Wisconsin PAC (Hat-tip to Jeannie Dean in BRAD BLOG comments for flagging it)…
Two points of note in response to the video above.
1) Reeder’s questions about reconciling the number of printed ballots — all of them — is spot on. Public records requests should be made for invoices from the vendors who printed ballots in the state. Those invoices should detail how many ballots were printed. At the same time, records requests should be made for the paper trail detailing the number of ballots sent to each city and/or ward, and the campaigns should do an accounting of all ballots during the recount procedure to reconcile the number of voted, unvoted and spoiled ballots. All blank, unvoted ballots should be fully accounted for during reconciliation of the election.
2) The point made in the video about trusting the G.A.B. or anybody else. As we have pointed out over and over, for years on this blog, elections are not about trust. They are about oversight by the citizenry. If the citizenry can’t see it for themselves, there is no reason to trust it. Kennedy seems like quite a decent fellow, as witnessed by his willingness to chat on the street about these matters with a citizen. But nothing here is about trust. It’s about checks, balances, and oversight, as we recently emphasized with some passion in this video on the Wisconsin mess.
Kudos to Reeder and Ryan for their good citizen watchdogging and video taping! We could use a million more like ’em on the ground in WI and in every other state!
Finally, Kloppenburg beautifully expressed the point of such a count during her press conference yesterday when she said: “A recount may change the outcome of this election or it may confirm it, but when it is done, a recount will have shed necessary and appropriate light on an election that, right now, seems to so many people to be suspect.”
We agree.
But it looks like Fox “News” doesn’t, and have apparently already decided the outcome, as reported on their website in their usual “fair and balanced” manner…
P.S. Kloppenburg is not a Democrat. She’s an independent. Not that facts ‘n’ stuff matter that much over at Fox “News”, of course.
WwwooooOOF!! Still absorbing all of this, but my first (and fiery) reaction is to this whopper:
Oh. My. God. Brad.
ES&S tried to pull that same fuckery in SARASOTA 2006 via *our* uber-partisan, ethically challenged, wonky election supervisor Kathy Dent. We got that whole exchange on video (challenged by “Hacking Democracy’s” Susan Pynchon, here:
http://youtu.be/9oehEKXpupA
Great work, as usual Brad. Still wrapping my brain around this story. SPECIAL MEETINGS between Walker / Prosser?!? Could it be…they’ve taken their blatant election manipulation TOO FAR?
I’ve already posted this to our new ELECTION INTEGRITY FACEBOOK GROUP – encouraging all my fellow Bradvillians to get over there and check in from time to time, here:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/home.php?sk=group_197815633590513
(And DIGG THIS ONE, please peeps!)
Oh. I see. It’s a WI state LAW requirement to wipe the memory cards due to insufficient memory?
Well. That’s just cracked. And so convenient for those ES&S ass-clowns. No requirement for them to make better memory cards, just…wipe ’em.
Who got that passed (on behalf of whom)through the WI legislature, I wonder?
Oh. I get it, now. Sorry. NOT WI law to wipe them after 21 days, WI law to PRESERVE them for 21…ONLY TWENTY ONE DAYS?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
..and now that I’ve bothered to actually glean the details, seems I was probably more correct in my first post. The G.A.B. was “advised” to wipe the memory cards? By…?
JD, WI law requires retention of the memory cards for 21 days, or, if a recount or litigation is initiated, throughout the time the recount or litigation is pending.
The problem the GAB faced was that because they can’t get more memory cards, they can’t recount without erasing the existing ES&S memory cards which were used in the 4/5 election. That is why the GAB argued in its complaint that they need either the alternative remedy of erasing the existing election data from the cards or that they undergo a hand count in those 31 counties.
Since the candidates will stipulate to the hand count in those 31 counties, upon the court’s approval of the stipulation, the hand count will render the need to erase the memory cards moot.
Ernest,
That makes a hand recount a “twofer” …
You guys need to stop using your own little cryptic blogger vocabulary. I’m sure some folks know what a presser is, but most of us out here in the real world who grew up reading real newspapers have no idea, and it just slows down the reading of your site when we have to try to decypher what you are saying. Writing is about communicating. It’s not a video game.
Lord Balto, what about “twofer”? Can you handle it?
Excellent info Brad as always. I really wasn’t sure what to make of what happened late yesterday with the agreement. Anytime I see the Republican side compromise that quickly I get a sick feeling in my stomach. But it appears there was both some good with the agreement and some bad. Hopefully the Prosser camp was boxed in and had few options other than the agreement. I am curious in Kloppenburg has more info on the secret meeting between Walker and Prosser that she is using to her advantage like any good prosecutor would do.
And I really hope the Kloppenburg camp has a plan to fully utilize their ability to inspect ballots, as per WI law, prior to them being fed into the scanners.
Already lots of fascinating things playing out with this recount.
Hi LB you can always “google” terms that are cryptic to you and then they will be made clear. . . in most cases.
Is it possible that the this County Clerk was able to:
* check the voting lists over a 36 hour period to learn which registered voters failed to vote;
* used her PC programming skills to vote for these citizens;
* again use her PC skills to “dress up” the fraud;
* and then “find” the “unreported” votes and claim “human error”.
When something smells as badly as this person’s performance, common sense should tell us all that anything that she claims should be considered horribly bogus.
The fundamental principle of democracy is the principle of free and accurate elections. Tampering with the results is what despots and criminals do to ensure “correct” results. I recall the old axiom that, “it matters not who votes; it only matters who counts the votes”!
Regardless of our respective political views, we should all be appalled by the actions of this County Clerk. Her actions warrant serious investigation by the Federal Department of Judstice for potentially violating the principle of one person-one vote which the Supreme Court determined back in the 1960’s.
Best Regards to all,
Jay Corbett
With respect to your comment @6, Lord Balto, I suspect that you, like myself, are a Baby Boomer; part of a generation whose foundational knowledge was derived from print media.
I think it incumbent upon us old geezers to acquire the language of the 21st Century blogosphere.
Also, I think it appropriate to be cautious in referring to corporate-owned and controlled newspapers as “real world.”
You might want to peruse the series of articles in which Brad Friedman ran circles around America’s “Paper of Record” (The New York Times) which repeated the lies generated by right wing scam artists about ACORN over-and-over again until so much pressure was brought to bare by Brad’s campaign for truth and accuracy in reporting that the paper’s editor offered up a chiseling and less than candid “correction.”
In this day of terrabyte memory the thought of not having enough memory on a memory stick to be able to rerun ballots without erasing the information is beyond belief, What are these DOS voting machines? The fact that this goes on at this point in time ALONE could well lead one to the conclusion of rigged elections!
Brad, did WI officials disclose which 31 counties will be hand-counted? How were they selected? I think we very well may see a repeat of the 2004 NH and OH recount scams.
Since 1988, the Democratic RECORDED presidential margin was 5.5% – IN SPITE OF THE GOP FRAUD.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=tpsLLEzC1Ccb7FsEN-EgZhQ#gid=0
One must look at Oregon to see how a PROVEN HAND-RECOUNT SYSYEM WORKS.
A thorough statistical analysis proves that OREGON is the ONLY state with a nearly foolproof voting system. And that’s because OR election officials and voters really wanted a system that works. In 1998, OR instituted a vote-by-mail system with robust CHAIN-OF-CUSTODY CONTROLS and RANDOMLY-SELECTED COUNTIES for hand-recounts – A DETERRENCE TO FRAUD.
Here is a statistical analysis which proves that OR is the ONLY battleground state with a trusted system:
http://richardcharnin.com/OregonVotingSystem.htm
Note: In 2008, Obama won OR with a 57% share, 4% higher than his national share. That is not what you would expect from a “Battleground” state. Wonder why?
Note: In 2010, Oregon’s LIBERAL Senator Wyden won re-election with an identical 57% share. Wonder why?
Note: In 2010, Wisconsin’s LIBERAL Senator Finegold LOST re-election by 5%. Do you believe it? What does THAT tell us about Oregon’s system?
This is a statistical comparison between Oregon and New York’s former archaic LEVER voting system which, along with CT’s LEVER system, had the highest exit poll discrepancies in the nation.
Now that NY uses optical scanners, election officials WON’T HAND RECOUNT THE BALLOTS. Wonder why? What does THAT tell us about NY elections?
http://richardcharnin.com/OregonVsNYVoting.htm
Coorection to #13: It should read…
Since 1988, the Democratic RECORDED WISCONSIN presidential margin was 5.5% – IN SPITE OF THE GOP FRAUD.
You can review the WI and OR True Vote/historical analysis by specifying the state code. Use election year 2008, calculation code 5.
What is not in doubt in Waukesha County is that:
Nickolaus lied about how the problem with the the missing
votes came about …. the program she was running had a
default save function so her reason the votes from the
county’s 2nd biggest city were “lost” because she didn’t
hit the save key is a lie.
The lost votes were not discovered in a bipartisan canvass
of the vote but much earlier on Nickolaus’ own P.C..
And the day after the election on the state wide front
Gov. Walker spoke of ballots coming in “out of the blue.”
http://bluecheddar.wordpress.com/
from the article,
Notice that to produce a 7,700 vote swing within 14,000 votes would require 10,850 for one side and only 3150 for the other. Is that logical? Are there any other districts that are so lopsided?
Jay Corbett asked @ 10:
Absolutely possible. And an accounting of blank ballots printed, left over on election night, and thereafter, should reveal such an attempt at fraud.
That said, unless the reporter at the Brookfield Patch who reported the same numbers out of Brookfield on Tuesday night that Nickolaus reported on Wednesday, actually backdated her report to support the fraud, the scenario you describe is not likely. At least in regard to Brookfield.
While Brookfield (or elsewhere in Waukesha — or elsewhere in the state, obviously) could have been gamed, it doesn’t seem likely that Brookfield, at least, was gamed in that way.
Doggit said @ 12:
Well, close. But the point is they use proprietary memory cartridges, so a generic memory stick would not work. The fact that these jurisdictions purchased systems for which additional supplies were not available is — yet again — yet another absurdity in this entire affair.
But I’m sure they could buy the upgraded new system from the same company to avoid such problems, right? More public money to private vendors for crap that secretly counts out votes.
Sigh…
TruthIsAll @ 13 said:
As noted in the report above, and in the complaint from the G.A.B. [PDF], the 31 counties are the ones which use the OpTech Eagle op-scanner made by ES&S.
This is somewhat far afield from the topic at hand, but since you keep repeating the similar claim made above over and over in many many threads, I guess I have to respond again.
There is no “foolproof voting system” using electronics, so the emphasis would have to be on “nearly” in your declaration above. Unfortunately, that is not true either. Your analysis is based on what you think should be the correct results in Oregon (as based on comparisons with exit polls which are either accurate or not accurate). Presuming that they are accurate, you find Oregon’s results — as tallied by similar optical-scan computer systems — to be close to the exit poll data you are using.
That’s good. But it has nothign to do with whether their system is either “foolproof” or “near foolproof”. As a matter of fact, I could probably list about half a dozen ways off hand here that Oregon’s system could be gamed with a very low probability of detection. In short, even if we stipulate your analysis is correct, it doesn’t mean their all vote-by-mail system cannot be gamed. It only means that it hasn’t been and that, I would argue, is likely due to a number of factors, among them, some very good election procedures (which are not statutory, but at the discretion of good Secretaries of State) and insiders who have not, as yet, gamed the system.
As you know, I respect the work you do, Richard. But I believe it should be accurately represented, and you do not do that at times, as with the comment above.
I’ll stop here, and leave the rest of your comments (which are similarly speculative and unsupported by the hard evidence you tend to ascribe to them) because I think I’ve made my point and I hope you take them in the support they are intended.
Botany @ 15 said:
Allow me to add some nuance to rebut the certainty in your charge above. It’s clear that her explanation, as given, doesn’t hold up. But she might have not explained what happened very well in that press conference. While Access doesn’t have a save button, per se, there are other save buttons that could have not been pressed in the complicated process she used to receive results from cities and import them into her homespun Access database.
So does her explanation, as is, hold up? No. Does that mean she was definitely lying in the course of that explanation? Not necessarily. We shall see. But that’s one reason why an independent investigator is needed here, in order to gather more evidence and make that determination.
Correct.
Also correct.
Robert Thatch @ 17 said:
Sure. And past election results (whether accurate or not) in that county are similarly 3 to 1 in many races. It’s a very Republican area. There are other areas, in Milwaukee for example, where you can likely find a 3 to 1 spread going in the other direction. FWIW.
In other words, those numbers alone does not necessarily indicate fraud. Again, FWIW.
http://www.waukeshacounty.gov/uploadedFiles/Media/List_Documents/County_Clerk/2010_Official_Election_Results/20101102_official_results.pdf
look at pages 30-31….2 write ins candidates for senate had 13 out of 14 precincts report 9 votes each..more support than they receive in the rest of the state
i know i have posted this before brad and i apprciate ur generousity with ur comments section,i am finding lotta peops from wi that cant believe this lil oddity but when i post that link elsewhr..it vaporizes(probably something i am doing wrong since i am puter dumb)
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AvvpvGZa9gbpdE5lNTJMU190YVRDMnZwTEJCYnI3VkE&hl=en#gid=0
actually according to the after canvass results milwaukee county had 99,339 votes for prosser and 129,032 for klopp..so thats about 4 outta 9 for pross and 5 outta 9 for klopp
which is a big swing (or a red shift) from the nov elections whr peops voted about 2 outta 3 for dems in milwaukee
I wonder if there is a way to FOIL the phone records (both office and cell #) of Nickolaus in the days just after the election? I guarantee you she was in conversation with GOP operatives.
Problem with this Brad is that in order to run any reports/totals/etc, whatever Nicklaus entered in a data field prior to processing the report was auto-saved. There is no way around this – none!
However – if she manipulated the reports aspect of Access to only pick up certain criteria to arrive at a total – that is a whole ‘nuther kettle of stinky fish.
The latest from the GAB:
Board staff will hold a teleconference for County Clerks at 1:30 p.m. Monday, which will be broadcast live on Wisconsin Eye.
The Board anticipates issuing an order on Monday, April 25, for a statewide recount to begin on Wednesday, April 27.
Brad,
I did not mean to take the focus away from Wisconsin and referenced Oregon for comparison only.
– Sen. Wyden, a Dem liberal in Oregon, a battleground state, won re-election with by nearly 20%.
– Sen. Finegold, a Dem liberal in Wisconsin, a battleground state, lost re-election by 5%.
Oregon’s vote by mail system is not the issue here; neither have I discussed exit polls (there are no exit polls in Oregon).
The RECORDED votes ARE the issue.
Wisconsin, like all the other Battleground states (except for Oregon), has a track record which indicates that WI election officials make a career by spreading the bogus “voter fraud” canard while engaging in real “election Fraud” .
PMom_GA @ 26 said:
Well, there is a “way around” it. A few, actually. Not that, obviously, I have any interest in making excuses for her. So, actually, I won’t even bother to explain how her story could make sense, for now. We’ll let her explain her way out of it.
Hi All,
We need to keep plowing…don’t give up.
To all you folks who live in Wisconsin you can
help by observing the recount process and take
notes.
Was able to dig up contact info for the two camps
in this recount, they are looking for workers:
Prosser website: http://www.justiceprosser.com
Kloppenburb email: kloppenburgvolunteer@gmail.com
One good way of observing the recount process is
to actually work at the recount.
Thanks and Good Luck,
Frank Henry
Cottonwood, Arizona
Tel: 928-649-0249
e-mail: fmhenry4@netzero.com
so here’s my prediction.. first the situation:.. it seems, at least for now we have a sincere, willing, smart, competent challenger with both legal skills and willingness to be skeptical, but still reasonably diplomatic in approach, and we also have a wide awake electorate, riled up about this and with more than 10 years of knowledge of election fraud tactics as exposed by Brad, Bev and many others.
We also have some fairly arrogant actors fighting this, to date they have shown some real ham-handedness in pushing their agenda…like stupidly, unnecessarily violating open meeting laws when passing controversial law, like thinking they could directly defy court order to not implement bill til legal review done but simply “publishing” law in different publication, Niklaus’ odd mistake, leaked to conservatives and hinted at by Gov etc…
Given this situation, I predict some secrets will be revealed IF no one has a way to take out Klops desire to do recount as best as one can at this point…some one is going to/has already made a mistake this time, and it may be too big to dissappear…with that, someone is going to have to be petty fall guy and admit to some bad acts…or some one will have disrupt whole thing like Bush v Gore SCOTUS ruling or challenger severely hampered in some way.
we’ll see if Klop is up to getting ahead of an OH or NH staged recount
TruthIsAll @ 28:
Understood. And my response was not due to your distracting from WI, but from what I feel is a misleading argument you make with some frequency. Lack of fraud, on its own, does not mean a system is fraud-proof, or even “safer” from fraud than other systems.
Apples and oranges. WI is far more of a “battleground” than liberal Oregon. Feingold was targeted specifically as he is far more outspoken and progressive than Wyden. There are other reasons the comparison is apples and oranges as well. In either case, none of it speaks to the electoral systems in each state, as I see it.
I’m with you on the first part (“spreading bogus ‘voter fraud’ canard). The next part (“engaging in real ‘election fraud'”) still needs to be proven. Be careful of spreading bogus “election fraud” canard.
Where the charge of “voter fraud” is baseless, and the remedy disenfranchises voters, the concerns about “election fraud” are very real, can flip an election with a “conspiracy” of one, and NOBODY is ever disenfranchised in the fighting for the remedy to election fraud (transparency, oversight, self-governance by the citizenry!)
Brad,
Consider this WI 2004 anomaly.
Bush’s National recorded share was 1.4% HIGHER than his WI share. But his share of returning WI Gore voters was 3.2% HIGHER than his National share. His 3rd-party (Other) share was 11.7% HIGHER.
What does THAT tell you? It is a MATHEMATICAL FACT. DRAW YOUR OWN CONLUSIONS. IT INDICATES FRAUD, PURE AND SIMPLE.
Does it PROVE fraud? Circumstantially, yes, it does.
So who do you believe, the Wisconsin election officials or your lying eyes? Look here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=tpsLLEzC1Ccb7FsEN-EgZhQ#gid=0
If Rove needed Wisconins’s 10 EVs in 2004, he would have closed the deal. As it was, he didn’t, so Kerry won the state by 11,000 votes. The True Vote Model indicates that he won by at least 150,000 votes. But it’s only a model, you may say. Yes, but it’s a model based on factual evidence, not the kind you would expect from voter fraud addicted Wisconsin election officials and Karl Rove. They would have you believe that Kerry barely squeaked out a win there.
Wisconsin used to be considered our most progressive state. Oregon was always considered a Battleground state. But now the distinction is clear. Oregon leans Democratic . And so do the other so-called Battleground states. They all lean DEmocratic – except when the votes are miscounted.
If you believe the mainstream media’s conventional wisdom (and I don’t think you do), then you will believe that the BG states are competitive. The REALITY is that the BG is precisely where the GOP steals elections. And WI sits right there – in the battleground.
TruthIsAll – I’m not questioning your evidence pointing to the possibility/red flags of election fraud in WI in 2004. Such anomalies, as I’ve long reported/supported, should be investigated (though, we shouldn’t have to read post-election tea leaves like that to determine if there was fraud, we should have a system that makes the fraud next to impossible in the first place — see Democracy’s Gold Standard).
Rather, I was questioning your insistence that OR’s vote-by-mail system was fraud-proof, couldn’t be gamed, etc. All underscored by my long-ago-made and still-stood-by argument that Vote-by-Mail elections are a terrible idea (with all due deference to folks in OR who love the system and believe, falsely, that it protects them from fraudulent elections.)
Great work Brad.
This has probably already been addressed, but is it proper protocol in Wisconsin for the local county election official (Nickolaus) to call a press conference to make a momentous announcement (she “found” some missing ballots that turned an election in her party’s favor) instead of her reporting this up to the Government Accountability Board, the state’s top election agency, letting it call a press conference to make the announcement?
I would have asked Kevin Kennedy, the G.A.B.’s director and general counsel, therefore, was he informed about Nickolaus’ press conference ahead of time and what she was going to disclose or was he taken by surprise just like everyone else (except apparently Walker and Prosser)? IOW, why wasn’t Kennedy the one making this announcement at G.A.B. headquarters instead of Nickolaus?
Nickolaus’ stumbling presser indicates some type of Republican chicanery was up. Following Walker’s and Prosser’s meeting, she’d been asked to do something, something that involved bypassing the state election “chain of command,” something that made her nervous enough to stumble through a hastily-called press conference, something that would get her into trouble if caught (or someone lodged a challenge, leading to scrutiny of Nickolaus herself).
Or maybe I’m wrong. But something definitely smells fishy in the cheese state.
The Oracle @ 35 asked:
While she might arguably be the best person to hold such a press conference, it’s clear that she should have notified both her Board of Canvassers and the G.A.B. as soon as the problem was discovered (on Wed. morning, after the election, according to her own story.)
She did not inform either of them until the presser. You can read the couple of email sent from the GAB to Nickolaus, complaining that she did not let them know before the press conference, in the exhibits [PDF] included with Klopp’s request for a special investigator.
See the exhibits linked above. The G.A.B. didn’t know, apparently.
Brad, your points are well given BUT
Oregon is at least halfway to the gold standard and, anyway, a worthwhile exemplar for anti-H.A.V.A. sentiments — ABOLISH H.A.V.A. — where then, like Oregon now, all ballots are hand-marked paper ballots.
Yeah, computer-tricky machines still count the maile-in paper ballots. But, at least, it is plausible to have a handmade recount, and that’s worth emulation.
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“Most importantly, why did Nickolaus take so long to notify the Board of Canvassers or the G.A.B. following her discovery of the previously unreported votes?”
Because they first had to be tallied to see if they would help Prosser, then various meetings needed to be held to discuss how to handle the announcement and cover-up? Had those votes resulted in a stronger win for Kloppenburg, would they have been “found”?