No Runny Eggs

While the city of Waukesha has been fully recounted as of Friday night per Sarah Millard of Waukesha Patch, reconciling the poll books to the ballots occurred too late for the results to be reflected in today’s update from the Government Accountability Board. With 3,500 reporting units with at least reviewed results as of noon Monday, representing 1,445,559 votes, Justice David Prosser has an unofficial statewide 6,994-vote lead over challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, a drop of 322 votes from his pre-recount 7,316-vote lead. There are two reporting units in the Village of Sussex with reported results that are currently under review (more on the main reason certain reporting units have been under review in a bit), and 49 reporting units in the city of Waukesha (out of 61) that do not have reported results.

Once the Waukesha and Sussex results are added, there will (or more properly, did remain as of the close of business Saturday; the canvassing board took Sunday off) approximately 36,600 votes left to count in 51 reporting units (really 50; the one city of Milwaukee reporting unit in Waukesha County is the ADM Cocoa plant with 0 residents).

The big news is the GAB put out a rather strong statement regarding whether holes in the ballot bag or missing security tag information is by itself a valid reason to toss the ballots contained therein:

Questions about the authenticity of ballots have arisen during the recount process due to holes in some ballot bags, gaps in their closure or issues with security tags. A hole in a ballot bag or a missing security tag is not enough evidence alone to discard the ballots inside. The ability to put a hand into a ballot bag is not by itself evidence of fraud.

The statement goes on to describe an internal review process the GAB instituted after the first-day issues with the reliability of the numbers reported on that day designed to catch, among other things, a post-election stuffing of the ballot bags (emphasis added):

G.A.B. staff has created an internal review process to check each ward’s recount totals against the original canvass totals to look for variances of plus or minus 10 votes. Any ward in which 10 more or 10 fewer votes are reported is flagged by staff for follow-up with the county clerk for an explanation of the reason. So far, we have found no significant, unexplained variances of vote totals. Staff will continue to review Waukesha County’s results as they come in each day until the recount is complete.

The last thing it does is address the certification of the election. Under normal circumstances, the GAB staff does its own canvass of the results. However, since this election is being recounted, the GAB relies on the certifications of the 72 counties, and once the deadline for a judicial appeal passes (or once judicial appeal is fully adjudicated), it certifies the winner.