Late last night we detailed just some of the reasons why it’s impossible to know, short of actually counting the paper ballots by hand in Wisconsin, if Republican Gov. Scott Walker actually received more votes than his Democratic challenger Mayor Tom Barrett or not.
Without both a recount request and a court order for the ballots to be hand-counted, rather than machine-counted yet again, the state of Wisconsin does not manually examine any of its paper ballots to ensure that the flawed, oft-failed and easily manipulated computer optical-scan systems and central tabulators tallied any of them as per the voters’ intent.
Well, the same concerns hold true this morning for Democrat John Lehman in his important recall challenge to incumbent Republican Sen. Van Wanggaard in the District 21 state Senate race. His declaration of victory late last night is based on the same completely unverified computer tallies as Walker’s was earlier in the evening…
The Lehman/Wanggaard recall contest was one of four currently Republican state Senate seats up for grabs yesterday along with the recall elections of the Governor and Lt. Governor. If Democrats end up taking any one of those Senate seats, they will retake majority control of the state Senate, making it easier to block Walker’s extreme Rightwing agenda.
But when Lehman announced to supporters at 1am last night that “All the vote totals are in now. It’s clear we won the 21st Senate seat race!,” he was presuming that the same computer tally systems used in the Walker race, and the same computer tally systems that we described last night as failing in election after election, were actually accurate in his case.
They may have been, but absolutely nobody knows — just as with the Walker race.
According to AP, with “60 of 60 Precincts Reporting”, Lehman is said to be ahead of Wanggaard by just 800 votes out of some 70,000 cast in that race. Those 70,000 votes, however, are wholly unverified as having been accurately tabulated by the computers at this hour.
While absentee ballots that arrive by Election Day were counted yesterday at the precinct in WI (the City of Milwaukee, unlike the rest of the state, counts absentee ballots separately) some military, overseas and regular absentee ballots may still come in this week and remain to be counted.
Reid Magney, spokesman for WI’s Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), the top election authority in the state, confirmed to The BRAD BLOG today that “Absentee ballots (military/overseas and regular) postmarked by election day have until 4 p.m. the Friday after the election to arrive at the municipal clerk’s office and be counted.”
In either case, as in the Walker race, before the remaining absentees are tallied (also by computer) the results announced to date by the electronic tabulators, and then reported without verification by the AP, are either accurate or not.
Unless all of the paper ballots are hand-counted in his race — and so far, none of them have been to our knowledge — there is no more reason to believe that John Lehman actually received more votes than Van Wanggaard, than there is to believe that Scott Walker won his race over Tom Barrett.
Similarly, there is no more reason to believe the other three Republican state Senate were actually won by the Republicans, as is currently being reported based on similarly unverified numbers.
This is a swell opportunity for Democrats to insist that the paper ballots in the District 21 state Senate race — presuming the chain of custody for them is secure — be hand-counted publicly, since, no doubt, Republicans, for a change, are also likely to demand the same thing, and justifiably so.
It’s a shame, and a continuing embarrassment for the nation, that both parties don’t demand “Democracy’s Gold Standard” in every election. If publicly counted paper ballots are the Gold Standard for what are believed to be the very closest of elections, shouldn’t they be the standard for every election?
I kept figuring you would cover the Louisiana state GOP convention, but not?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k884ZKUNwbo&feature=player_embedded
my comments are mostly on the top Ron Paul (GA) article
WinwardTack – Would like to very much! Have been on road for past week and a half, and only back in the saddle in time for yesterday’s Recalls. Have been keeping my eye on the LA outrage, and would love to give it some coverage as soon as I can find the oxygen to do it here.
Appreciate your comments with links, etc., and have been trying to keep up with them, even while on the road!
I wish I could clone me a few times. It’d be much easier! 🙂
Great idea. Let’s hope the incumbent Republican INSISTS on a hand recount. Maybe they can verify the Gubernatorial count in those precincts as well. And lets wonder why if he doesn’t.
It would be telling if the GOP candidate, Waangard, did NOT ask for a recount here, wouldn’t it? And here is his statement this morning :
http://elections.wispolitics.com/
People across the state and country have asked that I immediately ask for a recount. However, we all know that the best decisions are made when well-rested and after consideration of all options,†Wanggaard said in a brief statement.
“We will closely monitor the canvass of votes with legal representation. We will evaluate our options regarding recounts following the official count of ballots.â€
Nicely done Brad!
Hopefully there will be some coverage at least locally of that convention. While I do not support Ron Paul it’s pretty obvious the establishment end of the Republican Party has done everything in their power, including circumventing their own rules and ignoring votes to disenfranchise and shut out his supporters. Good for them for fighting back.
Brad, Please check out thought number 5 on this blog:
http://cognidissidence.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-thoughts-on-recall.html
Just saw a news clip of Repug robo-calling….i’m aghast!! Whoda thunk it???
At #4,
that was my exact thought when George Allen lost Virginia to Webb by less than 1%. Seeing as R’s never concede anything it was curious to me why he didn’t play the recount card, unless of course……..
Was Kathy Nicklous involved in the election in any way? That alone warrants a demand for a recount (hand count) of at least some of the ballots.
In general the Dems capitulate too quickly and in this case they should hold off until all the votes are in and there’s time to determine whether any errors were made (people turned away, ballot totals that didn’t add up etc.) that require a challenge. If Gore had dug in his heels in 2000… well, who knows?
One difference, Brad. Because the opt scan reported result in this instance entails a less than .5% difference, Van Wanggaard can request a “recount” (not a hand count) at taxpayer expense.
Also, while a court order would be required for a hand count, Van Wanggaard and John Lehman could stipulate to a court-ordered hand count, as the parties did in last year’s Supreme Court race — albeit, the stipulation in the Supreme Court race only entailed a limited number of the optical scanners.
I am so proud of our evolved sophistication, especially with all this dazzling electronic magic and all.
It makes me wonder, when good guys like General Clark and Labor Secretary Reich, think we have suffered a coup.
Don’t they ever watch these heavenly elections on TV and stuff?
A reported vote difference of 779 of 71,731 reportedly cast is a differenc of 1.09%. Under Wisconsin recount rules the reported loser, Van Wangaard, would have to pay the full cost of the recount.
This is not likely to happen.
For the recount to be without charge to the candidate, the reported vote difference must narrow to 358.
Remember everything floating out on the AP wires and internet are unofficial vote totals. What matters are the official,canvassed vote totals to be reported later this week.
More precisely: what matters, for the calculation of who pays and how much, are the official,canvassed vote totals to be reported later this week
That’s fasssssssssssssssscinating that the Republican challenger isn’t asking for a recount.
I mean, HELLO!!!
Thanks for giving me an alternative to bashing my head against the steering wheel in response to the msm idiocy.
Brad?
Anybody?
Anyone have a clue as to why Nate Silver would say-
–?
I’m pretty sure he’s got a blind spot as far as acknowledging the possibility of outcome changing error or manipulation by the machines. That might help explain how he could interpret “official” results that differ from exit polls as “proof” that exit polls are unreliable. But his comment here goes back to before the widespread introduction of the current electronic machines and all the glaring discrepancies between exit polls and results that have arisen since, no?
Anybody got a clue?
Well, myself @ 16, I’ll take a stab at it.
I think the answer may be that there have been exit poll discrepancies in the past. So Nate Silver may have some truth on his side.
But I think it may also be true that when discrepancies DID occur prior to the 2000 election they were nowhere near the wild disparities between exit polls and results we started seeing then.
I believe that Germany uses exit polls, they are known to be reliable, and that before our 2000 election they were considered, with good reason, to be reliable here, also.
To sum up–I think Nate Silver has missed the mark on this one.
I just love the fact that even winning a recall is not enough for you damn Democrats!! Get over it!! Let these people serve their terms. Please go after Obama, he is the one causing serious damage to this country. George Bush was unpatriotic and unamerican for the debt he wrought on our nation. This according to Obama. Let me think here, wait, Obama has by far exceeded the spending of the Bush Administration. Let’s try to get a good leader in the White House shall we. Let’s leave the State’s to their business as we here in Wi. aren’t doing too bad.
“Let me think here, wait, Obama has by far exceeded the spending of the Bush Administration.”
That oft-repeated and always wrong line is like a code that identifies the hatewingers on the right. Obviously this person has not seen the chart showing how much of “Obama’s debt” is actually “owned” by the GOBP.
Amy Sturdevant–
I just love the fact that you have no idea what a fact is. You’re not paying attention. At this point you can not prove that Scott Walker won and I can not prove that he lost. If there was a reason to have any confidence in the outcome then you would be on a bit more solid footing with your gloating and chiding. But there is no reason to have confidence in these election results. That’s why a few years ago the Germans, after trying our voting machines, rejected them. Please try to pay attention to something other than your own mantra.
Computer scientists tell us again and again these machines are error-prone and easy to manipulate. That is not the way we’re supposed to conduct elections here. We’re supposed to have confidence in the outcomes. If the declared outcome had gone the other way, you’d no doubt be thinking the election was stolen. We need to fix the voting process so that all sides can have confidence in the results.
If you have any interest in democracy, information on this vitally important subject can be found in abundance right here.
From Kenosha News:
@David Lasagna re: exit polls. If one starts from the ASSUMPTION that reported (but unverified) election results are accurate, then the conclusion follows that exit polls are inaccurate. Garbage in, garbage out.
Perhaps one day we will be able to test the hypotheses by comparing both the exit polls and the reported results against ACTUAL RESULTS (paper ballots counted publicly by hand).
As actual results by and large are never determined, the truth is that there is a discrepency between exit polls (in US elections, but not elsewhere) and reported results. And we don’t know which are correct, because we don’t both the check.
TWO quotes from that extremist former Senate Majority Leader Fitzgerald, now co-Leader in a tied Senate:
1. The Democrats are desperate for any win to claim so they can do a victory dance.
2. Expressed shock that votes in Madison were still being counted at 11p.m.!
(Where were the federal marshalls to drag the commie-liberal corrupt poll workers away?)
Fitzgerald actually made a true statement!
Just IMAGINE if the proud Democrats of Wisconsin had not launched the first set of recalls – preening Scott Walker could right this minute call a Special Session to ram through Right-To-Work and even more disgusting giveaways to the very wealthy. He started with a 3 Senator majority don’t forget.
“Recall Election Fraud in Wisconsin? You Betcha!”
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/06/07/recall-election-fraud-in-wisconsin-you-betcha/
Of course, Walker doesn’t want any hand re-counts, so it won’t happen, But I think it’s high time for a law that says there will be a hand re-count of one randomly chosen precinct in every district…to be video taped to the internet. If there is ANY DIFFERENCE between the hand re-count and the machine tally, then the entire precinct will be hand re-counted. If there is nothing wrong with the machine-tallied votes, Republicans should not object to such a law.