As I type, Waukesha County is working on the process of certifying its results after finishing the physical recount about 2 pm yesterday. With unofficial numbers from all of Waukesha County except the city of Muskego, most of the city of Waukesha, and most of the village of Summit (the last was reported to the Government Accountability Board but was still under review as of this morning) available from the GAB as of this morning, and certified numbers from the other 71 counties, 3,545 of Wisconsin’s 3,602 reporting units have been reported and at minimum reviewed by the Government Accountability Board, representing 1,477,284 of an original 1,498,880 votes. On a net basis, Justice David Prosser gained 368 votes over his pre-recount total in those 3,545 reporting units, challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg gained a net 678 votes over the pre-recount total, and an additional 162 “scattering” were recorded over the pre-recount total. That means Prosser lost 310 votes of his pre-recount 7,316-vote lead, and has an unofficial 7,006-vote lead.
Waukesha County is expected to finish the process of certification either today or tomorrow. Indeed, just before the board of canvassers broke for lunch, they completed the final canvass of Muskego. Once the certified results are transmitted to the GAB (note; if they’re transmitted electronically, they’ll be on the GAB county-by-county certified results/minutes page in short order), the 5-business-day window of opportunity to file a judicial appeal of the recount begins. If Kloppenburg, as the sole losing candidate, does not, do so, it will be Humpbot Time as Prosser is declared the official winner.
Since my last update on Monday, Kloppenburg penned an op-ed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel where she denied having made up her mind on whether to challenge the inevitable recount defeat in court, then proceeded to spend the remainder of the op-ed outlining why many, including both myself and the majority of the Journal Sentinel editorial board, believe she has already made up her mind to do so.
The Associated Press, in their Wednesday wrap (copy courtesy the Appleton Post-Crescent), decided to focus on the raw recounted numbers, without any perspective on either what the pre-recount numbers were in the same reporting units or what the change of margin has been, to repeat its Election Night “mistake” of giving Kloppenburg and her entourage false hope. For those who were tracking their numbers in the days following the election, they waited for several days after the failure to report the results of the city of Brookfield became common knowledge to correct their erroneous numbers.
