April 10, 2011
How nice of you David
In the midst of the greatest Supreme Court scandal since...well, since Gableman's obscene and dishonest TV spots gave him the edge in his WMC-supported race against Louis Butler, David Prosser's campaign said yesterday, and I'm not making this up (this headline in the MJS): "Prosser open to Waukesha County recount."
Question: Who asked? Brian Nemoir, Prosser's campaign manager said, "If you need to do a recount in Waukesha County alone to satisfy heightened interest, that's fine." The gods must be crazy! He said--if you...
Yesterday I wrote that Prosser said to two unnamed reporters, Kloppenburg "may" have a right to a recount. I think we now see the plot unfolding. Prosser and his D.C.-based, Florida-2000 tested lawyers might well be arguing that a recount is not permitted even if Kloppenburg pays for it! C'mon!
So today we learn that his honor, David Prosser, is "open to" (Will permit? Will allow?) a Waukesha County recount if, as his manager says, that will satisfy the voters or Kloppenburg. What chutzpa.
Good heavens. The clerk worked for Prosser for eight years, knew the details of the caucus scandal, "found thousands of votes on her home computer." Yes, the poster person for "human error" as the excuse du jour, like her pal who ran the Prosser campaign, is certain a federal investigation is unnecessary.
Catch these words of comfort from the Waukesha clerk: "There's a complete chain of custody from the time it leaves my locked office to when it returns to my locked office." OMG, as your grandchildren might say.
Question: Who told the ckerk she could keep voting data on her personal computer?
Question: Why did the clerk wait more than 24 hours before informing state election officials? (Time to fiddle with her computer perhaps?) When even Alberta Darling is upset, you know what normal people must be thinking.
Question: Unless the Supreme Court shuts down for a few years, could anyone argue that the public will have confidence in this Court? I don't.
The only answer is a new election.
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All I am asking is that there be a thorough investigation by independent experts who can assure the public that there was not any opportunity for fraud to have occurred. That is a reasonable objective that should be achievable.
And yes, any finding to the contrary - any determination that it was at all possible to manufacture this result - taints this election quite completely, given the track record and highly suspect activities of this particular clerk. Would she have done what she could to steal the election given the opportunity? Her past actions show that she is entirely capable of committing just such behavior. And the way she has become inserted into the process here is simply too convenient to pass muster WITHOUT an independent determination that she didn't actually have opportunity to commit fraud.
Reasonable doubts, in this case, must be settled if this election is to be granted any legitimacy by those who have reasonable concerns about its integrity.
-Jeff Pieterick | Waterloo, WI | April 10, 2011
I keep reading that this Kathy Nickolaus clown is pretty good with computers and software. I doubt she is smart enough to write her own software, but she probably is pretty good at programming database and spreadsheet programs like Access and Excel.
I do hope investigators take a closer look at how she uses software to collect, tally, manipulate data to say what she wants it to say. Without any doubt, I suspect she has all her work and PCs password protected, another fine way to protect and conceal.
When users create backups and more backups, it's very easy to forget and to overlook.
The fact she was given immunity from prosecution a few years back would almost suggest that she could have been implicated in some sort of wrongdoing. There were bigger fish to fry then, but it now looks like a bigger whopper got away only to be snagged later.
Give someone enough rope and he/she will eventually hang himself/herself. Waukesha county board needs to give Nickolaus the boot. How wonderful it will be when we actually do have the last laugh on this one.
-Pietr Haikuu | Hurley | April 10, 2011
Considering the city of Brookfield posted their results online (independent of the County Clerk) the night of the vote, and those numbers match what the clerk reported at the canvass what exactly is the point of a recount?
And since you mentioned Florida-2000, don't forget NY Times, AP and CNN found that in only 1 (the most improbable) of 10 scenarios could Al Gore have possibly won Florida.
-Bob B. | Zion, IL | April 10, 2011
You people have lost touch with reality. The votes for Brookfield were published on election night. They were never added to the county's tally until after the omission was discovered. The SAME NUMBER of votes that were published for Brookfield on Tuesday night were then added to the Waukesha totals on Thursday.
There are no 'new' votes. There are no 'found votes' There is no scandal, except for the ones in your fertile, obsessed, and idiotic minds.
-RWGranny | Milwaukee, WI | April 10, 2011
Ed,
There are severe thunderstorm warnings throughout Wisconsin tonight.....better remove your tinfoil hat.
I voted in Brookfield along with 14,314 other people. Our totals were left out of a preliminary report provided as a courtesy to the AP.
The Brookfield clerk provided the numbers to Brookfield Patch, an online service run by AOL, which reported that Prosser had prevailed in Brookfield on the night of the election.
Kathy Nickolaus is a Republican. What would be the point of suppressing winning votes for Prosser?
Really, you people are hurting your cause by being delusional.
-Denise | Brookfield, WI | April 10, 2011
As a voter who votes for which candidate i prefer regardless of party. I have to disagree with your stance on this issue. I had a preferrence for Prosser, so I was watching his numbers with great interest. If you paid attention election night, somewhere around 10pm there was an obvious problem. Waukesha Co reported x votes for each candidate with all but 1 or 2(sorry 10 is late for me)reporting. When it finally showed all reporting, in the most red county in all of WI, Prosser's x had barely increased. Obviously there was something wrong. Give the lady a break, don't throw around accusations until proven guilty. That is irresponsible! If she did fix it, I'll eat my words and apoligize. Until then, there is one owed by many on the left to this very embarassed, apologetic lady. She will pay for her mistake with her job, deservingly. But to infer she has done something criminal without proof is just plain wrong!
-Brad Altschul | Madison, WI | April 10, 2011
At one point on election night, AP mistakenly gave Ms. Kloppenburg an extra 10,000 votes, which was described as a typo when it was detected within an hour. Until that was retracted, I felt she was going to win. Without it, I doubted it. I was watching the incomplete returns from Waukesha County, and trying to extrapolate roughly from the vote totals and percentages to see what the final margin might turn out to be there. It looked pretty discouraging, because after nearly all the Dane precincts were in, there was still half of Waukesha not reported---and at the rate the partial Waukesha returns had been reported, Kloppenburg would surely lose statewide. She didn't have any large pockets of support still outstanding. So I turned it off and went to bed---Prosser leading by approx 2,000 at that point. Eight hours later, the AP had Kloppenburg up by 200 with all of Waukesha county in. I was pleased that my extrapolations were, as it seemed, erroneous. Then the Brookfield business was revealed. My original roughly estimated calculations were, sadly enough, right on the mark. Maybe the moral of the story is: don't believe the AP's results. They are, let's remember, unofficial. But that's the least of it. The real battle lies ahead, in the recount contests. I hope Wisconsin's liberals get really mad after this mockery. I hope you've got a hell of a big chip on your shoulder. Most of all, I hope you figure out how to get more Milwaukee county voters to the polls . . . and fix whatever is screwy with the Racine county electorate, as well. As for Mr. Obama---what a sell out. We need leaders who are willing to fight, and that won't come from this White House. Where can we find a Eugene McCarthy or Bobby Kennedy when we need them?
-Oliver Steinberg | St. Paul, MN | April 10, 2011
Some commenters have suggested the real trouble spot in this election was Milwaukee County and its statistical undervote for Kloppenburg. Could that be the reason for this?http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/119574509.html
"The state Government Accountability Board and Milwaukee County district attorney's office has scheduled a news conference Monday afternoon to discuss the results of a "significant investigation."
No details were given about the investigation.
The news conference is scheduled at 2 p.m. Monday at the Government Accountability Board office in Madison."
-nj | Madison, WI | April 10, 2011
It appears the GAB meeting tomorrow is not about last week's election per the Twitter.
-nj | Madison, WI | April 10, 2011
In defense of Ed and others who've assumed the worst, it's the overall heavy handed, Koch snorting, constitituon skirting, Wisconsin statute/court order defying, Capitol lockdown police sniper deploying Fitzwalkers who have created a climate where such suspicions flourish.
When a known criminal accomplice and secretive, personal computer protecting County Clerk, Nickolaus, discovers an error that gives her former boss Prosser the election in the most heated supreme court race in Wisconsin's history, and which will likely result in a court ruling favorable to Fitzwalker in respect to the most regressive piece of legislation maybe ever, things can get a little hot.
If the tables were turned the same people now spouting phony outrage over false accusations would be livid with rage and howling for blood.
Save your breath for something worthwhile and tell Waukesha County it's time to call for Kathy Nicklolaus' resignation. She's got a long history of shady activity and good old fashioned screw-ups that have cast national doubt on the integrity of Wisconsins elections.
Send your bile her way and to those in Waukesha County that keep electing her term after term after term.
-Steve Carlson | Trego WI | April 11, 2011
Corporate Repubs: There are problems with elections in this country as long as you rely on machines only to count or receive votes. There are always problems with "human error." There may be other problems....among them may be "adding votes," or, is it "subtracting votes."
However, the biggest problem is the fact that you have insisted that corporations are people, and that they speak for all their employees.... guess that means those who want to stay employed must aqree...whether they do or not. And, that nice trick gives you the right to bring disgusting amounts of money from people like Koch's into state elections round the nation.
This is where the distrust and disgust really begins for yes,some of us also fiscal conservatives, who still have ethics on our mind.
And sorry....this election, due to the behavior of your brightest and best, does look bad, smells bad, is unworthy of all.
-hmj | Madison, Wisconsin | April 11, 2011
I find it funny how you, like so many others, continue to insist that the clerk is keeping the files on her "home computer." That is not what she is doing. She is keeping them on her office computer. The issue is that she isn't storing them on a server that gets backed up and audited. She is not storing things on a computer in her home. While this may be an issue for recovery purposes, it is hardly of the same caliber of offense as if she where storing this data at home. At least get your facts straight.
-Dan | Madison WI | April 12, 2011
So I guess facts mean nothing to you Mr. Garvey. Or maybe you missed the story from the Brookfield Patch that published the exact numbers from Brookfield that match the numbers added after a failure to publish the proper numbers on election day. But I know that real facts are a minor inconvenience to crazy liberal conspiract theorists like you. For my own amusment, however, here is the link: http://brookfield-wi.patch.com/articles/brookfield-gives-prosser-nearly-11k-votes.
I am so glad you and your party are going down in flames (along with the unions you are in bed with) because you have no integrity at all.
-Greg | Mission Viejo, CA | April 12, 2011
Oh there WAS a point to not reporting the votes...most likely. It's just finding out what that scheme provided for the clients that is the difficult part. Maybe it will be found out and maybe it won't. til then,little Alice-in-Wonderlands', don't pretned this was a regular little 2-100 point difference in the votes turned in.
-hmj | Madison, wisconsin | April 12, 2011
One Word (with tears): Whhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
-Jess G | Neenah WI | April 13, 2011
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