Wisconsin is no Minnesota.
Where Minnesota’s post-election hand count of the 2008 U.S. Senate election between then Sen. Norm Coleman and now Sen. Al Franken was, as we wrote at the UK’s Guardian at the time, “one of the longest and most transparent election hand-counts in the history of the US,” Wisconsin has made it extremely difficult (putting it nicely) to know what the hell is actually going on in their statewide “recount” of the April 5th, 2011, state Supreme Court election between Justice David Prosser and Asst. Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg.
Where Minnesota’s chief election official, Sec. of State Mark Ritchie, oversaw a process to ensure that updated and accurate numbers were easily tracked and transparently shared with the media on a daily basis, Wisconsin’s chief election authority, their Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), has posted (and even sometimes removed) confusing, misleading, and unclear updates, often with inaccurate information, on various schedules, and frequently with little or no explanation for wholesale changes and deletion of data.
Where Minnesota counted every vote by hand with full public scrutiny, including photographs and video cameras, Wisconsin is tabulating ballots, often by the same oft-failed, easily-manipulated computer systems that counted them in the first place, behind barriers that preclude broad public oversight, under an agreement between both campaigns which disallows the use of video cameras by observers.
The count, which began last Wednesday, often feels as if it’s happening in virtual darkness, at least to those of us trying to observe from afar, but the same sentiment has been shared with us by many we’ve spoken to who are there on the ground. There is an alarming lack of transparency to help the citizenry oversee the process in order to ensure accountability and an accurate count. To make matters worse, if that’s possible, chain of custody issues for the ballots appear questionable in a number of reported cases, after ballots have been kept in the same darkness by election officials — sometimes securely, sometimes not — for the three weeks following the election and prior to the “recount.”
One person we’ve spoken to who has also been trying desperately, as we have, to closely follow along with the progress, described the situation over the weekend by saying: “Let’s call it ‘fascinatingly unacceptable.’ There are other ‘f’ words I could use, but we’ll leave it at that.”
Another Election Integrity veteran was forced to reach for a “bright side” by saying: “It may be worse than Minnesota, but, hey, at least it’s no Florida!”
We’ve not written here about WI’s Supreme Court “recount” since it began last Wednesday, largely because we’ve had such a difficult time making heads or tails of the progress, the accuracy, the integrity of the ballots or the counting, or even of the various reports of bizarre anomalies which continue to occur, often with little explanation for their resolution…
‘Necessary and appropriate light’
Two Wednesdays ago Kloppenburg announced her intention to request this count after the unverified results of the state canvass placed her some 7,300 votes behind the incumbent Republican Prosser. The 0.488% margin out of some 1.5 million ballots cast allowed for the state-sponsored count to take place at Kloppenburg’s option. The unofficial and unverified canvass results followed on the startling and still-unexplained revelation of some 14,000 votes which were not initially included in the Election Night tallies by Prosser’s former colleague, Republican Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus. Those ballots changed the unofficial results from a 204 vote lead for Kloppenburg to a 7,316 vote lead for Prosser.
When Kloppenburg made her announcement that she was exercising her right to a statewide recount, she declared, appropriately enough: “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.”
Unfortunately, the process to date risks those hopes being dashed, unless changes are made broadly and quickly in the state’s current “recount” process. If not, there is a great possibility that little if any “light” will ultimately be “shed” on the April 5th election results and they are likely to remain “suspect,” sadly, for a long time to come.
Just 31 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties are counting some or most of their paper ballots by hand. The others counties are running them back through the same machines that counted them — either accurately or inaccurately — in the first place, offering little assurance that the results are correctly tabulated.
Where ballots have been counted by hand over the last week or so, a number of anomalies have occurred and/or irregularities been discovered.
Let’s review a few of the most noteworthy incidents, in no particular order…
97 uncounted, unsecured ballots in the city of Verona
As reported by the Capitol Times last Friday…
“There’s a table in the clerk’s office, and there was a binder and some other papers on top of the ballots,” said City Administrator Bill Burns, who found the stack.
…
On election night, all the ballots were supposed to be secured in sealed bags, which were then supposed to be signed by local elections officials. The seals were supposed to remain intact.
Burns found the bundle unbagged. They were bagged and he drove them to Madison. The bag had no signatures or initials.
…
“I just have to ask,” [newly appointed Dane County Clerk Karen] Peters asked Masarik: “Just why were these not sealed in a bag on election night?”
But no one could say how it happened.
Despite the mystery of the ballots’ provenance and the broken chain of custody for them, the Cap Times reports [emphasis added], “Through precinct stamps and initials on the ballots, the proceeding pretty much established that the ballots were genuine.”
“Pretty much.” Close enough for government work, then?
The paper continues [emphasis added]: “But the chain of custody was compromised. Not only did Masarik admit that her office was sometimes left unlocked while she was at lunch, a cleaning person had access to the office after hours.”
So, no big deal? Apparently not in Wisconsin, for some reason — even after we learn the results on those 97 votes: “the ballots in question favor Prosser by 30 votes: unexpected because he took a 2-1 beating in the city overall.”
In fact, according to Dane County’s canvass results [XLS] in the City of Verona (and be careful, because there is also a Town of Verona, as is the case with many WI cities, towns, and villages), Kloppenberg supposedly defeated Prosser soundly 2380 to 1204. And yet, 97 votes show up after three unsecured weeks on someone’s desk and Prosser gains 30 votes over Kloppenburg when they are counted. Okay.
Undocumented and torn ballot bags in the Town of Delafield
This is one of the strangest anomalies to date, and it’s made all the more disturbing by the fact that it occurred not only in Kathy Nickolaus’ Waukesha County, but in the Town of Delafield, where Justice Prosser says he spent the day after the election “trying to figure out what the hell is happening.” But more on that in a moment.
Last Thursday, according to a volunteer observer in the Waukesha County counting room, the serial number on the protective plastic seal on one bag of ballots was not recorded at all on the “Inspector’s Statement,” raising serious chain of custody issues for the entire bag of ballots [emphasis in original]…
So Bill (volunteer lawyer) objected. I got my phone out and went to call the campaign. The sheriff wouldn’t let me out the back door (even though I went out that door to use the restroom earlier) but made me go around everyone to the front door (front door is for reps, back door is for public). I had to get past the guy sitting out front wanting to know if I was leaving for the day, what my name was…
I called the campaign and they said to tell Bill to tell the judge that we are considering making an objection and want to have legal counsel. They said DO NOT open the bag. I raced back into the room and found Bill. He said the bag had already been opened…
He said he objected and asked the judge to open the other bags first, and not # 3, but the judge said NO. Bill said it’s in the minutes and we have a record of it. BUT…they started counting the ballots in bag 3 first. By this time the …media started pouring in.
…
I don’t know how many votes we’re talking here, but this is very suspicious. Why couldn’t the judge wait? Why did they open # 3 first?
Equally troubling, another ballot bag from Delafield was later found to have been torn, reportedly, with the serial number scratched out and replaced with another.
We asked G.A.B. spokesperson Reid Magney for an explanation of these anomalies from last Thursday, but he didn’t yet have one.
“I haven’t been briefed on that situation and so I can’t comment on it at this point,” he told The BRAD BLOG this afternoon.
“Generally we don’t have information about these things until we get minutes from the county. We don’t get the minutes until the entire county has completed their count,” he explained.
Aside from the obvious significance of (hundreds of? thousands of?) ballots in Waukesha County having fallen from what is supposed to be a secure chain of custody, the fact that these anomalies occurred out of Delafield is sure to raise even more eyebrows, given Prosser’s admission that he spent the day there following the April 5 election.
It was on that very same day, April 6th, that Nickolaus says she discovered the unreported 14,000 votes from the town of Brookfield, though she failed to report that fact to either the G.A.B. or even her own Waukesha Canvass Board which was busy reconciling polling books and ballot totals that same day and the day after. It wasn’t until Nickolaus’ stunning 5:30pm press conference on April 7th that the canvassers and the G.A.B. learned of the problem (though Rightwing bloggers had been reporting the discovery which would change the course of the election, with very detailed and specific reports in the hours prior to Nickolaus’ presser).
When Kloppenburg filed for her “recount” on April 20th, she also requested that a special investigator be assigned by the G.A.B. to look into Nickolaus’ many election reporting inconsistencies. In the complaint requesting the special probe [PDF], as we reported in detail on April 22, the following allegations were included:
18. Governor Scott Walker made public statements on Wednesday, April 6, 2011, commenting that there might be “ballots somewhere, somehow found out of the blue that weren’t counted before.”
After Kloppenburg’s complaint was made public, Prosser vehemently denied the charges, according to Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel. He “angrily” told the paper “The idea that I would go to the governor’s office is just patently untrue. There is not a shred of evidence. That is pure malice.”
But just one week later, Prosser’s story had begun to change. In an interview with Tony Galli of Madison’s ABC affiliate WKOW27 Prosser conceded, “It is conceivable that during that week, I stopped down to the governor’s office.”
“I certainly never went beyond the reception person,” Prosser told WKOW27 in his apparent flip-flop, “I never met with the governor personally in his office.” (Emphasis in original audio.)
More to the point of this article, while going on record with his changing story and carefully qualified remarks, Prosser added that he’d “spent almost all day in Delafield [the day after the election], where we’re trying to figure out what the hell is happening here, are we going to have to have a recount?”
So he spent that day In Delafield? Interesting.
This is a sitting Supreme Court Justice who has already admitted to felony crimes as the Republican majority leader and speaker of the state Assembly as Ernest Canning meticulously documented in our recent exposé, and someone whose story on meeting with his old colleague, Republican Governor Scott Walker, the day after an election which had become a referendum on Walker’s union-busting agenda, has changed from indignant denial to “maybe I did,” in the period of one week.
So is there anything more behind his presence in Delafield and the two ballot bags which we now learn appear to have somehow fallen out of the chain of custody? Good questions for a special investigator, it seems to us.
Here’s the package from WKOW27 News including Prosser’s admission, changing his story, as captured on audio tape…
Whatever happened in Delafield, and whatever happened with those two ballot bags, the matter was of enough concern to the Kloppenburg campaign that they sent an attorney to monitor the count in Waukesha County the next day, according to TMJ 4, Milwaukee’s NBC affiliate:
Earlier Friday a clerk discovered that one of the bags full of ballots from the Town of Delafield was not properly sealed. The Kloppenburg campaign said that means there was the possibility that people could have had access to the bag of ballots. On Thursday, a different bag containing hundreds of ballots wasn’t recorded on the poll inspector’s log. That bag was also from the Town of Delafield.
Despite that, poll officials promise the numbers all added up to those obtained on election night. Still, the Kloppenburg campaign sent Maistelman to oversee the recount.
“I was obtained to come down here to ensure the integrity of the process on behalf of the Kloppenburg campaign. “It’s my understanding that there’s been some issues with bags, ballot bags, identification numbers not adding up, so they just wanted to ensure that all the proper procedures were followed,” Maistelman said.
The BRAD BLOG has learned, via a number of Kloppenburg volunteers, that while Maistelman was there on Friday, he was not there in some of the days which have followed since.
And again, the G.A.B. told us they have no comment at all on this matter, and likely would not until they receive and review minutes from the counting room after the counting has been completed in Waukesha, where all ballots are being counted by hand, due to the serious concerns about County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus. She has (wisely) recused herself from this hand count.
Unfortunately, these anomalies are becoming less and less anomalous. As a blogger observing Waukesha County’s progress via webstream reported over the weekend:
…
Waukesha County officials discovered that all three ballot bags from a precinct consisting of wards 4, 5, 6, 14 and 22 in Oconomowoc had nothing written on the bag labels.
…
The municipal clerk from that area (not the County Clerk) was asked if she had an explanation. She said she had none.
…
This makes 8 bags of ballots so far in Waukesha County with serious “chain of custody” breaches.
See his report at dKos for more details.
Nearly impossible to follow “recount” updates
There have been various reports by the media, and very occasionally by the G.A.B., of problems and discrepancies elsewhere, as the recount is just over a third of the way done, at best. Some, such as this report on Monday, posted at the G.A.B. website, include more than 100 votes (in this case, for Kloppenburg) that were not included in the original post-election canvass results from Waupaca County.
In that incident report, County Clerk Mary Robbins details problems in two different towns discovered during their “recount.” In the town of Larrabee “the original tally sheet from the April 5, 2011 election showed a 0 vote count,” according to her email to the G.A.B. The “mistake” was not discovered during the canvass, and was explained by the town clerk Arlene Kratzke who admitted “she just forgot to transfer the numbers onto the sheet. … The call in sheet, also, only shows 70 for Kloppenburg, the tape shows 167, the actual hand count shows 168 for Kloppenburg.”
In the Town of Royalton, Kloppenburg’s original count was 80, but the hand count tallied 95 votes for Kloppenburg. According to Robbins, Royalton’s Town “Clerk had no explanation other than the election officials forgot to count a stack of ballots cast for Kloppenburg when they reported.”
Anomalies, errors, or out-and-out failures like the above are being discovered across the state, and have affected both candidates, though usually not in numbers as large as those in one fell swoop.
Problems like this are not particularly unusual in large counts like this. Shit happens, as they say. All a part of the problems that occur when ballots are not counted transparently, at the polling place, on Election Night in front of the public, all parties, and video cameras, with results posted decentrally at each precinct before ballots move anywhere. We’ve come to call that sort of truly transparent process, “Democracy’s Gold Standard” and recently posted a video “Special Comment” in regard to that standard being greatly missed in the WI Supreme Court election and so many others like it.
Of more import than the various small errors is that it has become very difficult — some would say damned near impossible — to track the entire mess, thanks to the horrible job the G.A.B. has been doing in the first week of counting, to keep the public up to date with “recount” results as they happen.
On this score, the G.A.B.’s reporting has been a mess.
The failures started from the very first day, when numbers were released by the G.A.B. in a spreadsheet that didn’t add up at all in some 25 different rows (each one representing a “counting unit,” usually made up of several different wards in one municipality in Wisconsin.)
For example, in this April 27 spreadsheet [XLS], row 74, representing the Town of Sumner (Wards 1 & 2) in Barron County, shows 653 votes cast as counted during the “recount,” but just 145 votes were reported from that “counting unit” in the original post-election canvas.
Unless 508 votes showed up out of nowhere in those two wards, it’s likely there was a mistake in record keeping by the G.A.B. somewhere. There were similar anomalies seen in another 15 or 20 rows that day.
The next day, the G.A.B. explained cryptically on its website:
For several days thereafter, results spreadsheets were posted with, instead of 3603 rows (one for each “reporting unit” in the state, plus one header line), just 53 rows, or perhaps a hundred or two hundred.
Of course, this made it nearly impossible for those trying to oversee the “recount” to track the updated numbers and changes in vote totals, since one could not easily compare numbers on one spreadsheet against another. The same rows represented completely different “reporting units” in each sheet.
As we said when we began here, Wisconsin is no Minnesota. During the Minnesota U.S. Senate count, tracking changes each day was a breeze, with clear results postings each and every night. That has decidedly not been the case in Wisconsin.
In their terse Monday night “Recount Summary for May 2,” the G.A.B. announced:
G.A.B. spokesman Magney offered The BRAD BLOG a bit more detail today. “When we get in results that show more than a 10 vote change in any ward, we do a review internally, contact the clerk, to make sure that’s not a typo. Initially, we weren’t including it at all if it was under review, but we later decided it was better to include it with a notation.”
Thankfully, as of Monday night, their May 2nd, 6:07pm report [XLS], once again had all rows (“counting units”) fully restored to it. Finally.
(NOTE: Unfortunately, we failed to SAVE the above mentioned file locally and, as is their maddening custom, the G.A.B. has now removed that file from its system, replacing it with a newer one with a different name, rather than keeping them all available for download, so various versions of the update files could be compared. The G.A.B.’s spokesperson says we may request any particular file, however, and they can send it via email — a seemingly necessarily burdensome process, as we have now suggested to him. He says it’s their way of keeping things free from clutter and easier to follow along with the latest files as posted to the main G.A.B. “recount” information page. Magney notes anybody is free to save any posted files to their own systems locally, if they choose. Of course, as we told him, they need to view it to know about it in the first place, in order to do so!)
The problem seen on row 74 (the Town of Sumner) in the earlier spreadsheet, where 508 extra votes were reported, as noted above, is now cleared up in the latest versions of the spreadsheet, in that the canvass result totals are the same as the “recount” vote totals for that row. No change between canvassed and “recounted” numbers is reported from that “counting unit.” The reason for the initially misreported “recount” totals? Unknown. Though the “recount” numbers initially reported for the Town of Sumner (Wards 1 & 2) on row 74 now show up in the same exact totals on row 70, the Town of Rice Lake (Wards 1 – 4), where they were likely supposed to have been shown on Day 1.
Making matters worse, many counties are failing to report the number of “Total Ballots Cast,” crucial to overseeing the process, to the G.A.B., as requested in their April 26 directive [PDF] to Wisconsin County Clerks on the day before counting was to begin. Here’s what the G.A.B. told counties to include when reporting numbers to them at the end of each day’s counting:
Date
County
Name of Reporting Unit i.e. Town of Madison, Wards 1-7
Total Ballots Cast
Votes for Prosser
Votes for Kloppenburg
Scattering Votes
Note the instruction to include “Total Ballots Cast” with each update. That number is crucial for investigators and overseers to help determine any anomalous undervote totals, often a red flag that there may be a problem in the results somewhere along the way.
Unfortunately, in parts or all of 14 counties (Ashland, Bayfield, Burnett, Chippewa, Crawford, Green, Marquette, Menomonee, Monroe, Sauk, Sawyer, Taylor, Vilas, and Winnebago) the “recount” totals are given, but the “Total Ballots Cast” column remains blank as of the latest spreadsheets.
The G.A.B.’s Magney tells us that they are “working to get that information, but it’s not always provided to us.”
He says, “this is information that the counties are going to be reporting in the official canvas of the recount. What we’re providing now is information so people can follow along and see the process. Clerks are sending along the information each night, but there is no form or template. The numbers you are seeing are unofficial.”
“At this point,” he continued, “we’re contacting the clerks and asking them to provide that information [Totals Ballots Cast]. I think those that haven’t likely have the higher priority of actually counting the ballots. There’s no statutory requirement for them to provide this information.”
All the miscounted votes
Lastly, for now, the G.A.B. spreadsheets do not include another crucial set of numbers, though it’s one we should be able to cull ourselves after the G.A.B.’s results reports finally settle into a single, reliable format. That is the number of miscounted votes.
As you’ll see when following almost any of the reporting on this “recount,” or usually any other, the only numbers reported are generally net gains or losses for each candidate.
Of far more interest to The BRAD BLOG — and, likely, to election integrity advocates in general — is the number of votes originally miscounted by the oft-failed, easily-manipulated electronic tabulating systems which are rarely checked for accuracy except in post-election contests such as this.
So if a hand-count discovers that Joe Candidate received 50 more votes in Ward 1 than originally reported by the machines on Election Night, but in Ward 2 Joe Candidate lost 49 votes, the county and the media would both end up reporting: “Hand count finds machines work almost perfectly! Only 1 vote lost by Joe Candidate!”
That, even though some 99 votes were actually miscounted for poor Joe in just two precincts. Had the hand count found that he’d lost a full 50 votes in Ward 2, the county and media would have reported that the “recount” found the original machines results were perfect!
And that’s precisely what they do. Watch for it as you’re reading reports on the “recount” progress in Wisconsin. We’ll endeavor in the weeks ahead to pull together a report on the real number of miscounted votes to give you a better idea of how well the machines made by Diebold, ES&S, and Sequoia actually worked, or didn’t, in Wisconsin’s April 5th election.
Unfortunately, in this contest, just 31 of the 72 counties will actually see some or all of their ballots counted by hand. So we’ll be able to get only a limited sample. But it’ll no doubt provide an interesting set of numbers to consider for the future as these very same systems are set for use in upcoming state Senate recall elections in Wisconsin, as well as set to tally millions of votes in next year’s Presidential election cycle.
And, oh, for those interested, to date, according to the G.A.B.’s latest numbers as of 6pm CT today (Tuesday, May 3rd), Prosser has gained 245 votes net and Kloppenburg has gained 414 votes net. His unofficial, unverified 7,316 vote lead after the statewide canvass is now an unofficial, only-slightly-less-unverified lead of 7,147 votes.
– Jeannie Dean contributed research for this article.
Excellent work, Brad, but you may have been a bit too charitable in describing Prosser’s permutations from “The idea that I would go to the governor’s office is just patently untrue” to “I certainly never went beyond the reception person” as simply an “apparent” flip-flop.
Surely the governor’s receptionist would be considered a part of “the governor’s office.” And what purpose, other than seeing the governor, would Prosser have for going to Walker’s receptionist?
What’s next, “your Honor?” The dog ate the ballots?
This comment from Brad is completely inappropriate, comes out of the blue, and is simply dead wrong:
“Problems like this are not particular unusual in large counts like this. Shit happens, as they say. All a part of the problems that occur when ballots are not counted transparently, at the polling place, on Election Night in front of the public, all parties and video cameras, with results posted decentrally at each precinct before ballots move anywhere. We’ve come to call that sort of truly transparent process, “Democracy’s Gold Standard” and recently posted a video “Special Comment” in regard to that standard being greatly missed in the WI Supreme Court election and so many others like it.”
The whole story proves the point that the idea of a system taking every possible precaution preemptively — that is in advance of any issue — is simply not workable. (Call it human nature, economics, rush to get results.) Put differently, it would be even harder to get a hand count done right at every single polling place (let alone so-called super-precinct and early voting and absentee voting and voting for voters with disabilities — issues conveniently ignored in Brad’s self declared “gold standard”) on election night before there is even a hint of a close contest than to get the current comparatively easy to administer setup done right — which we seem incapable of doing. So, again, it would be much harder to do a good job with each precinct hand count before knowing that the contest was close than it was to do things the way they were done. Therefor, suggesting the self-proclaimed “gold standard” as a solution in light of this evidence of how poorly with the resources at their disposal people are able to do this sort of thing makes no sense.
High School kids could run a cleaner count. But, that’t probably the point. They don’t want a clean count now anymore than on election night.
If the ballots were not secure in the first place, then why even bother with the recount? Why not have a revote, and then hand count the ballots? This election is very much one that Jimmy Carter’s election witness group would fail if it had been held overseas. Notice how fast this issue left the lamestream media news? That should tell you everything about how this will turn out…. Better luck next time….if EVER there is one.
Nate Abrams @ 2:
Where shall I start?…
Not even sure what that means. But it sounds like it supports my point. No need to take “precaution[s] preemptively” in the case of a count later. Rather, count it right the first time.
Weird. They have no problem doing so in some 40% of New Hampshire. Why do you suppose that is?
First, it’s not my “self declared ‘gold standard'”. It’s Democracy’s. What do you do when you really really need to know the results of an election? To make 100% sure that it’s been tabulated correctly? You count every ballot, by hand, in front of the public. That’s Democracy’s Gold Standard for elections. Every election. Every time there is any question worth knowing the answer to for certain.
As to the other points you mention, I fail to see how any of it causes a problem in regard to counting ballots at the precinct on election night. Feel free to let me know what I’m missing, since you seem to have it figured out there.
Not sure I even understand what you’re trying to say there. It’s more difficult counting ballots by hand in front of the public because we don’t know yet if an election is close? Huh???
Letter perfect, Brad. Great job. I’m so happy (read: oddly relieved)to read it all in one lump sum like that.
Thank you so much for helping to give the voters of WISCONSIN, a voice…just like you did for me in Sarasota, 2006, and countless others in (far too many) counties since.
I hope this will give the wonderful recount workers in WI some idea of how much they have already achieved, and some validation that what they’re seeing & experiencing on the ground right now is really really weird…
…even by OUR standards.
The first 4 days of the recount I was at the Winnebago Co recount in Oshkosh. I counted the votes for Kloppenburg and sometimes for both candidates before they were put through the machine.The totals generally tied out to the numbers reported on election night. The small differences were when we occasionally pulled out a ballot for a hand count that was faintly marked and probably did not register on election day.
So, no problem in Oshkosh. They have since counted other communities but without me there the volunteers have stopped counting the ballots and so me can not know if the machines in any of the more Republican areas flipped any votes.
If there are any flipped votes in the Wisconsin Supreme Count election where the custody has been secure, then the count of the ballots will not equal the results from election night.
Please, encourage the volunteers to count the votes before they are put through the machines. That is the only way to determine that flipping has occurred.
Of course it is a mess, it is being conducted by johnsonville sausage packers!
These foul and faux edible-meatlike-substances actually use chicken and pig feces as filler and the casing they use are encrusted with excrement.
They use the money they make from working families and union workers grillin’ brats to launch an economic attack on working families and union busting!
They underwrote scotty walker and then anti-recall efforts to the tune of at least $59,000/ I am sure they supported prosser financially too and probably too, but I can’t stand the stench of their products long enough to research this.
PLEASE CALL JOHNSONVILLE AND TELL THEM WHY YOU WILL NOT EAT THEIR UNSANITARY, UNSAFE, AND DANGEROUS HIGHLY-PROCESSED EDIBLE-FOODLIKE-SUBSTANCE
BOYCOTT JOHNSONVILLE PRODUCTS
johnsonville contact info:
Johnsonville Sausage
PO Box 906
Sheboygan Falls, WI 53085
1-888-556-2728
Also – PLEASE CALL METCALFE’S SENTURY. They promote johnsonville each year with “The World’s Largest Brat Festival” in Madison, WI.
They claim to be innocent victems here – that they are contractually obligated to do this. THIS IS A LIE!
All contracts of this type of “outs” for when one party egregiously damages the other – clearly applicatable.
An alternative brat fry is being organized, but people are trying to be respectful of the fact Metcalfe’s has donated proceeds to local charities.
METCALFES IS HELPING JOHNSONVILLE LAUNCH AN ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST ITS CUSTOMER BASE WHICH WOULD ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY BE MIDDLE CLASS WORKING AMERICANS THAT JOHNSONVILLE IS ATTACKING!
Please tell the you will not shop in their stores nor buy johnsonville products.
Don’t let them get away with the lie that they “have a contract” – johnsonville has breached it!
Tell them to abandon johnsonville or citizens in Madison will organize pickets, protest, and leafleting around their store!
In Madison, we could put them out of business – folks are that upset, but we could also put them out of business in Milwaukee where the competition is much greater and folks can buy great Milwaukee-made sausage. There is absolutely no need for any Milwaukee retailer to carry johnsonville products.
PLEASE MAKE A DIFFERENCE AND CALL METCALFE’S
Metcalfe’s Hilldale
726 N. Midvale Blvd.
Madison, WI 53705
608.238.7612
Metcalfe’s Wauwatosa
6700 West State Street
Wauwatosa, WI 53213
414.259.8560
I’ve always wondered about this… I know there are entrenched interests on both sides of the political spectrum who resist scuttling an election and just doing it all over, but when there are so many problems encountered with existing ballots, why not just have a do-over where security of ballots and process is strictly enforced? At what point does the Federal government just step in and, as they did in Arkansas and other places in the 50’s when there was obvious unconstitutional behavior by local officials, just step in and enforce the law? There was plenty of dissension back in those days too…
This stands for the proposition that the only thing worse than a bad election is a bad recount.
We can’t win for losing sometimes it seems.
For me, the value of this recount is in laying bare the joke that the statement “well, at least we have paper ballots” is.
Nobody, and I mean nobody (except the random election geek) bothers to look into what the law says to do with the paper, and see if 1) it’s a good law and 2) it’s actually handled as the law prescribes.
I conclude that paper ballots and their (non) chain of custody are simply sinecures that convince the public their vote counted and it’s fine to just let computers do the work. Paper ballots’ whole function, as used in some Wisconsin towns, apparently is as “Exhibit A” — “see, we have PAPER.” There is no clear intent that they will be used for a pragmatic function, such as vote counting. If there were, these people would not be going around like they have their thumbs up their butts with no clue how to create a spreadsheet and no respect for protection of election records (oh, we’ll just make a new one, never mind that old spreadsheet). If this were a federal election, I believe that the various records woul HAVE to be protected, not destroyed and a new one made. The very thought of it makes me shake my head.
If a clerk is going to leave the ballots unsealed on their desk and the office unlocked (as did one clerk), then what pray tell do they think the purpose of the paper ballots is?
I thought the nylon Diebold ballot bags they use in our state were pathetic till I saw the plastic bags from Wisconsin.
For all the people who think recounts are really about recounts, or have some investigative value, then take a good look. This recount has nothing to do with the oft-held fantasy of fair elections. This looks a whole lot like “just count it and get it done”, a dog and pony show.
Put it another way: If key evidence for trials had as poor a chain of custody as do some of these ballots, the evidence would not be admissable.
Take a good look, America, at how your “democracy” works…and doesn’t. It all comes down to how the election is run, so look long and hard at Wisconsin. It’s PATHETIC, and I conclude that it is highly unlikely that anything will be done about it. Citizens and elected officials are ignorant, tone deaf, not focused on elections as a priority, and completely believe in Santa, The Easter Bunny and democratic, well administered elections.
Time may not be on our side … I mean folks who want paper ballot elections with air-tight security, chain of command validation, and hand counts.
A security expert notes that courts are more and more blindly accepting the numbers computers print out.
Perhaps it is time to apply the principle in the WI case at hand?
brad,thank you for this excellant update,and thank you to our own jeanie dean who has spent hours and hours,explaining and encouraging the wisconsin recount volenteers in the facebook ei group…but i think you are only seeing the tip of the iceberg as many problems do not seem to be in the public eye yet……this is a report from one of the volenteers that i found especially interresting last night
120 exhibits in kathy nickols county…geesh
nate@ #2
i cant speak for brad but i think the super precinct thing is a huge part of the problem…precincts should have no more than 500 registered voters,even with a 60 % or 97% turn out as kathy nickols has on a reg basis(rolls eyes)that would be an easy number to hand count on election night in public on camera,after that it is just a matter of openly posting and openly sharing info….a responsible bunch of 8th graders could do it(not suggesting that just saying,it is not rocket science)
Here’s the package from WKOW27 News including Prosser’s admission, changing his story, as captured on audio tape…
link is missing
the lack of ballots cast report at this late date makes me frustrated
from brads article,
but according to the clerk i spoke with evry village,town,city was to fill out a gab190 on election night(which is their ballots cast form) so what the gab is really saying is they are not sharing the first total voters reports,they are waiting until the new and improved report comes out
Wow. Such a fine article. Thanks Brad and Jeannie and all those in WI who provided the information.
Karen @ 17 said:
Have now fixed it. Sorry about that. Weirdness with WKOW’s video embed code.
I can only speak for the two mornings I observed in Dane, but Dane seems to be pretty close to “democracy’s gold standard” – chain of custody seems to be in place, total number ballots cast is being reconciled with poll books, unused ballots and remade ballots seem to be all accounted for. I heard of an issue on a day I was not there that one of the tabulators seemed to be miscounting. I cannot guarantee that none were on my first day (I was watching 3 tabulators at once) but that tabulator was replaced and today they seemed to have one observer for Prosser and one observer for Kloppenburg per tabulator. (Prosser’s camp is apparently paying their observers, or so I have been told). But honestly, Dane is, overall, not a place that anyone expected serious problems. The process being used also has a number of checks and balances that gave me reason to see it as reasonable. It’s not being video taped, but that, unfortunately is part of the court decision. Dane’s election officials, overall, take pride in their work, I literally saw a couple of them beating themselves up over very minor lapses (i.e. 2 ballots out of 1500 that one of the poll workers had skipped an initial on… getting frantic that a remade ballot had not been located – it was in the last pile to be counted, and they just hadn’t got it yet.) These same officials seem to be at least as upset about how the job is done in other counties at least as much as any of us, perhaps more so…
John @ 21:
Perhaps as close as one can get, in any case, when ballots are not hand counted on Election Night, publicly, at the polling places. And when folks are not allowed to video tape the entire “recount” process, as I wish they were.
Glad to hear that things seem to be proceeding well in Dane. Hopefully there were not too many AutoMark ballots cast, since those are 100% unverifiable as accurately reflecting the voters’ intent, unfortunately.
The rest of the county appears to tabulate by Optech Eagle optical-scanners, which means they should all be hand-counted. Happily. If the secure chain of custody can be accounted for, hopefully, we’ll have something resembling an accurate count there.
When you say “tabulators”, do you mean electronic tabulators? Or the people that Wisconsin refers to as “tabulators” in their recounts?
Since it looks like they use all Optech Eagle’s, as mentioned above, why would they be using an electronic tabulator at all??? Please let me know if I’ve misunderstod!
Then it’s the first place I’d look for ’em! As in Cuyahoga County, OH (Cleveland) which went big time for John Kerry in 2004, if you wanted to shave off a few hundred thousand votes from Kerry in a place that nobody was likely to notice, that would be it. And, as it turns out, it’s the place where the election officials were found to have rigged the recount and got sentenced to the maximum for it once caught, after the 2004 “recount” there.
The same is true for Dem-heavy Dane County
(Madison).
Much appreciate both your report here, and your observation at the “recount”! Stay in touch!
Hi BradBlog,
Superb story. Maybe I missed it though, bu I did not see a report about the two imposters that spent much of the day this past Saturday counting ballots in Dane County. For the source on this, listen to the WIBA-AM podcast from 5/3/11 at
I grew up in Chicago, but lately, politics in these 77 square miles surrounded by reality has been a whole lot more fun and corrupt than anything I ever saw there.
gih Madison WI
Link for WIBA-AM podcast of 5/3/11 reporting imposters counting votes in Dane County is at http://tinyurl.com/3fufx2p
gih Madison WI
Thanks, Gordon. I had heard some kind of reference to that, but not specifics. I’ll check out the podcast. Much appreciated!
And another BIG missing factor is –
– There is no accounting for the delivered number of ballots.
How many were delivered to the Clerks office before early voting?
How many ballots were used during early voting?
How many were left after early voting?
How many were delivered to the poll locations?
How many were used at the poll locations on election day?
How many ballots were not used of total delivered to the poll location??
How many unused ballots were returned to the Clerk’s offices???
Where are the unused ballots????
And the answer is – NO one knows because this vital accounting is not required by G.A.B.
Where is the system integrity without an accounting for the actual raw number of ballots.
Any body got any answers??????
I got your answers:
WHY this is: Suits someone’s political agenda – enough said, its wrong and actually is treason.
Nothing will change until we organize people and take meaningful action. The only “votes” we have is guaranteed to be counted, double counted, and tracked with fool-proof “double entry bookkeeping” are the dollars we spend!
Economic boycotts of the major players would do it, yet this dialog is flamed and banned at virtual EVERY “super-blog”.
Folks like atrios, kos, and others are really just promoting themselves which is easy – THEY WON’T DO ANYTHING BUT POUND SNARK ON THEIR KEYBOARDS.
Sure, they raise money, but they don’t “get it”. No matter how much we raise, the other side has much more and they get it from us – dishonest politicians are fully underwritten by the dollars we spend on their corporate owners!
The “super-blogs” are just another version of atrio’s “101 keyboard brigade” – hypocrites that actually aren’t willing to enter the fray with real action.
Brad was flamed and run off some boards because he started talking about election fraud. The same thing happens if you talk about boycotts.
Here’s a fact: NO MEANINGFUL SOCIAL CHANGE HAS OCCURRED IN THIS COUNTRY WITHOUT ECONOMIC ACTIONS/BOYCOTTS BY CONSUMERS!
So why do tpm, atrios, fdl, kos, think progress (actually TP for “toilet paper”), crooks and liars, dem underground, and the rest totally disrespect the need for boycotts?
Same reason they wouldn’t give brad a voice – they aren’t actually about meaningful change at all. They just like to generate views and pretend they are leading a parade by writing meaningless posts and undermining any meaningful action for real change.
KarenfromIllnois hit on the head perfectly:
But it seems many on the GOP side want to outsource and streamline our Democracy so that only a few people control 10’s of thousands of potential votes. I have a number of friends in local politics in a couple eastern states and they have complained to me that over the past few elections the number of polling places have been reduced 10-20%. This centralizes the process, disenfranchises older voters who now have to travel further to polling places and increases the number of votes counted at each polling place.
Tony – excellent points and glad you shared.
But here is question: If we can’t currently rely on our votes being accurately counted in an open and verifiable way, how else can we change this situation except by organizing economic boycotts against the corporations/wealthy capitalists that have created and exploit this situation?
#28
“But it seems many on the GOP side want to outsource and streamline our Democracy so that only a few people control 10’s of thousands of potential votes.”
Interesting observation. Bush cut back on border patrol. Immigration problems got worse. He also cut back on what he called field agents or people who make sure a borrower can afford a home. Seems almost like our problems are a planned event.
Hope Wisconsin shines a light on how messed up elections are in the US. NH in the ’08 democratic primaries were a joke. They can make or break a candidate.
DING DING DING DING!!!!!!!
WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And the most disturbing problem that seems almost like “a planned event” is 911 and the insane story that a man on a dialysis machine in a cave s somehow masterminded a coup where a team of ragtime operatives succeeded in overcoming the most secure defense system in the world with box cutters.
Would anyone accept any of THESE as and “official story”?
OR
OR
OR
Here’s some more “official stories” to mull over:
In a complex and well-coordinated heist, combining speed and stealth with an uncanny knowledge of nuclear submarine security systems, two teenage lovers who called themselves Romeo and Juliet, stole a Trident submarine yesterday and enjoyed a brief joyride before sinking the sub in a suicide pact in 10,000 feet of water. Although no bodies were recovered, a water-soaked library card found floating on the Pacific Ocean , belonging to Roy Meoli, age 17, confirmed to law enforcement officials that the troubled teenage boy was the sole mastermind of the daring heist.
A quintet of teenage girls swiped the space shuttle from its Florida launch pad and buzzed Disneyworld in Orlando yesterday afternoon. In a complex and well-coordinated heist, combining speed and stealth with an uncanny knowledge of the shuttle security system, the girls commandeered the aging spacecraft. Swooping low, they performed several complex aerobatics, then sped skyward. Flying above Seaworld, they paused to write the cell phone number of one of their boyfriends in bold, three hundred-foot letters in the sky. Local police traced the cell phone number and quickly apprehended the juveniles later at a slumber party, before charging them with the crime.
Several Saudi high school seniors commandeered the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower yesterday in a complex and well-coordinated heist, combining speed and stealth with an uncanny knowledge of Navy security systems. The teens sailed the ship across the Pacific undetected and then down to Acapulco for a weekend of binge drinking, while picking up girls along the way. Navy officials had no prior knowledge of the plan to hijack the missing aircraft carrier, nor even knew it was missing. But officials found a charred credit card belonging to one of the thieves on the flight deck of the carrier proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the hijackers guilt.
A quartet of quadriplegics borrowed the SS Queen Mary yesterday and sailed the ship to San Diego in an elaborate navigational feat. The foursome commandeered the former luxury liner, usually berthed at Long Beach California , after attending a weeklong course in sailing. An instructor at Bob Bligh’s Sailing School said the handicapped hijackers failed the rudiments of sailing and navigation and nearly wrecked a rowboat. However, law enforcement officials quickly said that failure didn’t necessarily mean that four handicapped men, confined to wheelchairs, couldn’t have piloted a 1000 foot luxury liner usually requiring dozens of officers and hundreds of trained crewmen. As if to confirm this likely explanation, an FBI spokesman said investigators found promotional videotapes from Carnival Cruise Lines, a copy of the movie Titanic, and a Blockbuster membership card belonging to one of the men in the wheelhouse of the Queen Mary, confirming the obvious guilt of the four.
Nineteen flight school dropouts, in a complex and well-coordinated heist combining speed and stealth with an uncanny knowledge of our nation’s security systems, commandeered four jumbo jets and flew hundreds of miles before returning to crash the planes into pre-selected targets. A flight school instructor said the men performed badly in the simplest of flight maneuvers in small Cessna airplanes. But local law enforcement officials quickly claimed the 19 hijackers could easily have performed complex maneuvers in much larger and more complex Boeing jumbo jets. Video cameras captured the ringleaders laughing and joking and a charred passport, found at the scene of the crash indicated, beyond any reasonable doubt, the guilt of the men.
I just want STOP KOCH CRIMES to know:
I will never, *ever* eat corporate-turd encrusted JOHNSONVILLE SAUSAGES, promise. (Didn’t before, probably wouldn’t have on my own, but after this kind of vigilance? I’m officially an anti-Johnsonville Sausages Convert!
Well, things took a turn today. 5 of the 6 ballot bags from Brookfield were compromised. Isn’t it funny when silly little mistakes look exactly like election fraud?
http://www.jsonline.com/news/waukesha/121325689.html
Ms. Kloppenburg was interviewed this morning:
http://slysoffice.blogspot.com/2011/05/state-supreme-court-candidate-joanne.html?spref=tw
I think what we are seeing here in Wisconsin is really part of a right wing national plan to end democracy in the USA. The republican party has long known that they will become a permanent minority and have been trying every trick in the book to avoid there inevitable failure. What we are facing is a very serious threat to our country and the principles it was founded on. From NAFTA and GAT which were devised to hurt the united states(name 1 country that has lost more jobs) to the repeal of posse comitatus, the proliferation of voting machines that have been shown to be insecure, corporate take over of the media, right wing infiltration of the judicial system and even the democratic party itself. We are seeing the proliferation of surveillance cameras at intersections across the country(yes even in madison), Google and other internet search engines store your searches, laptop computers have software that allows it to be tracked with GPS, the so called patriot act has suspended normal jurisprudence and the list goes on. Ultimately I believe this ties into the “new world order” and the necessary police state that will allow dictators to control everything. Check out the Alex Jones web site, fall down the rabbit hole. Take the red pill(matrix) if you care to really know what’s going on.
http://www.infowars.com/alexjones.html#
Prossser won – give it a break people and by the way on this nice sunny day I grilled out some nice juicy Johnsonville brats wirh some nice Sargento cheese on top and washed it down with a ice cold Coors light and later will wipe my ass with some Angel Soft.
Deal with the consequences of losing an election – if you don’t like it then go to Illinois and hang with the other sore losers.
I have just one word: WATERGATE The GOP just doesn’t know how to do it any other way.
This blows my mind, when I first read it and now, still:
“Despite that, poll officials promise the numbers all added up to those obtained on election night. Still, the Kloppenburg campaign sent Maistelman to oversee the recount.”
They’ll match? So f–cking what? Maybe for the poll officials, all they want is for the numbers to match, but I’m interested in VERIFYING THE ORIGINAL NUMBERS ARE TRUE. So, how can we verify they are true when all the safeguards are ignored? If I reported false numbers, then tampered with the bags of ballots, the fact that I cheated twice, including once to cover my tracks means the numbers will match.
Matching doesn’t matter. The integrity and confidence in accuracy is what matters. ARGH!