There actually is a dearth of stories from Wisconsin media today on the recount in the Supreme Court race. A quick scan of various state media sites turned up only stories filed about yesterday’s start to the recount, and those were almost completely without exception general “the recount has started slowly but surely” pieces.
That is not to say that there wasn’t any news today. The first bit of news came when the Government Accountability Board took down the running-total spreadsheet this morning, with very little explanation and a promise to have a revised one up by noon. Noon came and went without an update, but a fuller explanation came just after 5 pm – they made some data entry errors yesterday.
I’ll cut them just a bit of slack; this is the first election where either the GAB or its predecessor State Elections Board has reported any election results other than the official and certified numbers. However, this is also not the first time this election they had to pull back reported unofficial numbers; while the counties were reporting their canvassed totals, GAB pulled back numbers reported for two different counties for unspecified reasons, then put up revised numbers before the last county reported just before the deadline. In those two cases, a total of six reported votes were affected.
As of 6:05 pm, they released an updated spreadsheet, with 52 reporting units “reviewed by G.A.B. staff”. Consequently, I have updated my tracking spreadsheet with the numbers from (and only from) those 52 reporting units. I almost don’t want to report the change from such a small number of the 3,602 reporting units, mostly because there are a significant number of counties that have reported results from reporting units to the GAB but have not had numbers entered into GAB’s spreadsheet, but Prosser did gain a net 10 votes on his pre-recount 7,316-vote lead.
The other item comes out of Waukesha County, from a friend who was at the recount, Kyle Maichle (note; the vote totals Kyle mentions were not included above):
Day 2 of the recount in Waukesha County resulted in all of the wards in the Town of Brookfield and the Town of Delafield fully counted. Waukesha County Spokeswoman Ellen Nowak, told me that there is no change on Prosser’s lead in Waukesha County. The only thing has had change was the votes that Prosser gained yesterday in the Town of Brookfield.
After recount activity resumed after the lunch break, there was a very contentious moment when ballot bags for the Town of Delafield were about to be opened. A Kloppenburg campaign attorney challenged one of the bags due to no inspector statement written on the bag. After both campaigns huddled with the presiding judge to go over the ballot bag issue, the Clerk for the Town of Delafield was asked to testify to campaign representatives and the canvassers to determine if the ballots should be allowed. The Board of Canvassers unanimously rejected the Kloppenburg Campaign’s challenge and allowed the ballots to be counted.
There were two other ballot issues today involving the Town of Brookfield. In wards 9 and 10, one ballot was never assigned a voter number and canvassers had to examine if the ballot was valid. In wards 5 and 7, a hand recount of Prosser absentee ballots were ordered after one of their attorneys successfully challenged the canvassing board on grounds that two folded absentee ballots issued on election day were put in the wrong pile.
Do note the “unanimously” above. That means Ramona Kitzinger, the Democrat on the canvassing board, voted to reject Kloppenburg’s challenge of the bag of ballots in question. Side question – what is the over/under on Kitzinger recanting that decision in the same vein of her recantation of her declaration the canvas was on the up-and-up?
Meanwhile, Wisconsin political news was dominated by the recalls (first 2 items courtesy the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the third courtesy WisPolitics):
- The Democrats turned in recall petitions against the 6th of their targeted 8 Senate Repbulicans, Robert Cowles (R-Green Bay). There’s going to be more elections than I anticipated, but I still am not moving off my early prediction of a 2-2 split of flips or a 3-2 Republican advantage.
- The local-based group that fell just short of enough signatures to force a recall of Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Monona) said that it will not consolidate its efforts with those of the Utah-based American Patriot Recall Coalition.
- The GAB has gone to court to seek an extension of the 31-day signature review period of the recall petitions against Sens. Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse) and Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac) so that the first 8 recall elections (or at least primaries; if more than one Democrat, one Republican or one Constitution Party candidate files to run, the first election would be a partisan primary with the general recall election 4 weeks later) could all be held on the same day, July 12. In response, the Democrat Party of Wisconsin wants to force at least three separate recall election dates – one for Kapanke and Hopper, one for Sens. Jim Holperin (D-Conover), Bob Wirch (D-Burlington), Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay), Luther Olsen (R-Ripon), Sheila Harsdorf (R-River Falls) and Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), and a third for Cowles.
Revisions/extensions (7:42 am 4/29/2011) – For those of you who think Kloppenburg will go quietly into the good night once the recount affirms Prosser’s win, WisPolitics has a dose of cold water for you – Kloppenburg campaign says ‘anomalies’ warrant more review. Therefore, I’ve once again dusted off a classic category I had hoped was permanently retired.
R&E part 2 (10:55 am 4/29/2011) – WISC-TV’s Jessica Arp is live-tweeting the court proceedings in the “recall election consolidation” case. Running through the by-the-book timeline (31 days after the petitions are received to review, GAB needs to determine whether the petitions are sufficient for filing, then 6 weeks plus the days to the following Tuesday if the 6 weeks doesn’t end on a Tuesday before the election), the recall election of Cowles would also be on July 12, which would, if GAB is successful, put all 9 recall elections (or primaries as the case may be) on the same day.
And Kloppy has started laying the groundwork for an eventual court challenge to the recall already
http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=234938
JoAnne Kloppenburg’s campaign manager says the first two days of the recount in the state Supreme Court race have tuned up a number of “anomalies” that warrant further review.
How much you wanna bet she won’t ??? I bet she will !
And if I’d read your tagline update before posting, I wouldn’t have :-)
BTW – her previous answer to ‘what kind of anomalies ?’ was “We have a spreadsheet that shows the patterns in this election don’t look like previous SC elections”.
Well, NO SHIT, lady ! This one was turned into a statewide and national referendum on Guv Walker, unions in general, and Republicans in general, BY YOUR SIDE ! Unlike ANY previous SC election.
YEH, it’s gonna ‘look different’ ? This was known months in advance, by all sides.
But she’ll take it to court, I betcha ….
Then to appeal when she loses ….
She hopes to keep Prosser ‘unable to act while his election is in question’ for just as many months, days, and hours as she possibly can. While she hopes the Sumi thang gets up there, and maybe ties 3-3 in the unions favor.
As for reposting the update in the comments, don’t sweat the small stuff. I’ve missed the updates of others “once or twice”. :-)
The problem (for us) is that given who gets to choose the
judgeLawgiver-In-Black for the initial judicial appeal, she won’t lose there, and given where an appeal out of that kangaroo court goes, Prosser won’t win on appeal.The problem (for her) is that in order to win in the kangaroo court, that Lawgiver-In-Black would need to wantonly violate the Due Process clause of the Constitution. The federal courts don’t exactly take kindly to that; after all, the Supreme Court ultimately stopped the attempted theft of the 2000 Florida Presidential election on precisely those grounds.
Regardless of the status of the recount or judicial appeal, Prosser is a Supreme Court justice through July 31, so except for this case, he would not need to recuse himself because of the recount or judicial appeal of same. It’s only if Kloppenburg were able to extend the post-election appeals beyond July 31 that there would be an automatic 3-3 deadlock on the Supreme Court.
‘zactly right on all counts.
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