April 6, 2011

"Kloppenburg declares victory."

"' I look forward to bringing new blood to the Supreme Court and focusing my energy on the important work Wisconsin residents elect Supreme Court justices to do.'"

And the Prosser campaign launches the "Prosser Victory Fund."
"After a challenging battle... [t]he likely next step is a recount, requiring resources to protect the integrity of the ballots cast and deliver a win...."

65 comments:

Revenant said...

Sometimes I'm glad I live in a state that never has a competitive election.

It kind of sucks that my vote never means anything, but at the same time it means not having to deal with unending campaigns and elections.

chickelit said...

I look forward to bringing new blood to the Supreme Court and focusing my energy on the important work Wisconsin residents elect Supreme Court justices to do.

She certainly got me, a former resident now living out of state, interested in the Wisconsin Supreme court. I guess every polarized entity attracts opposite charges.

I also hear she's an "expert" on environmental issues yet lacks a technical background.

coketown said...

As I have traveled the State, people tell me they believe partisan politics do not belong in our Courts.

But as she traveled Milwaukee and Madison, people told her partisan politics do belong in the courts.

Econophile said...

Just what does she think "Wisconsin residents elect Supreme Court justices to do" exactly?

There's not much reason to believe she has any respect for this position.

Milwaukee said...

In Dane County, the difference between votes for County Executive and Supreme Court Justice was over 11,000. That is 11,000 more for the Supreme Court Justice contest. That could happen. In Marathon County, 108 precincts were counted before midnight. The remaining 32 precincts weren't counted until later. Those were all wards in the city of Wausau. Sort of curious. In Milwaukee, one news source has 227,577 votes cast for Kloppenburg and Prosser, and just 222,761 cast for the County Executive candidates. Seems sort of odd.

I guess the vote-total discrepancies are what democracy looks like.

Chennaul said...

Well she's going to be a cruel mistress-"new blood" and all that.


A commercial about an incident that happened thirty years ago and where the victim respectfully asked her to stop the injustice.

"New blood" indeed.

I guess in Wisconsin they call this-

winning.

So dignified of the new Supreme Court justice that ad was and the deaf ear to the victim.

What was that thing Obama use to say about judges needing-

empathy?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

As much as I would prefer Prossor, I don't think any good will come from him fighting this, unless there is clear evidence of specific fraud.

Chennaul said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Although I voted for him and was disappointed in the outcome, I was actually hoping Prosser might just concede. The recount will be expensive, divisive and unlikely to change the results.

Of course, it's easy for me to say since I'm not him and didn't just get Kloppenburg.

The one thing that I truly feel sorry for Prosser is this: going back to the SC for whatever remaining time he is there and having to hear Abrahamson say something to him in a condescending tone like "Congratulations on running a strong race,David".

wv: herocat

granmary said...

I just googled Wisconsin election fraud to refresh my memory and yes there it was going back for decades. What surprises me in this election, with all the thuggish crap done by the dems. and their union bosses is that they only managed to steal this one by 200 votes. That tells me that conservatives were higly motivated by the thugs and their tactics. I was expecting the dems. to steal this one in a big way.

ricpic said...

Well, I guess there was more passion on the Left. Shits that they are they nevertheless get their troops out and they're going to go on winning victory after victory until conservatives are equally motivated.

LawGirl said...

200 votes out of 1.5 million . . . I don't know how anyone, in good conscience, could NOT demand a recount. Even innocent error could account for a margin that tiny, much less fraud (Chicago North).

For the sake of the integrity - and simple accounting - of the democratic process, we need to be certain. While she may be right in the end, I think Kloppenburg was premature in declaring victory.

Sprezzatura said...

"I also hear she's an "expert" on environmental issues yet lacks a technical background."

Well then she should only be paid $65,000 a year, as one of Walker's charity hires.

Placeholder said...

Given that the state pays for recounts in races as close as this one, why is he out begging for money? Single malt collection running a little low?

Placeholder said...

The one thing that I truly feel sorry for Prosser is this: going back to the SC for whatever remaining time he is there and having to hear Abrahamson say something to him in a condescending tone like "Congratulations on running a strong race,David"

Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall, though? I can hear him now: "Shut up, you ... "

Revenge. It's not pretty, but it sure is sweet.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I doubt she honestly won it. I think the reality is that Prosser ballots were destroyed.

Sprezzatura said...

Maybe Prosser can get a sweetheart job, thanks to the cons that he "compliments" and "mirrors".

Placeholder said...

I doubt she honestly won it. I think the reality is that Prosser ballots were destroyed.

Yeah, in Ozaukee County. Ha ha ha ha!! Do you realize how stupid that allegation is?

Unknown said...

Placeholder said...

I doubt she honestly won it. I think the reality is that Prosser ballots were destroyed.

Yeah, in Ozaukee County. Ha ha ha ha!! Do you realize how stupid that allegation is?


He laughs, but does not deny. And, of course, he's the one that doesn't want an investigation, which is what Prosser's fund would help do.

We'll see about edutcher's law in the weeks to come.

Moose said...

Yup - starting to feel that sticky substance on the bottom of my shoes already...

chickelit said...

pbAndj said...

Well then she should only be paid $65,000 a year, as one of Walker's charity hires.

I wasn't alluding to anybody's salary dude--just to her more than likely incompetence.

A few months ago she wasn't on anyone's radar.

Placeholder said...

He laughs, but does not deny. And, of course, he's the one that doesn't want an investigation, which is what Prosser's fund would help do.

I was there! I destroyed the ballots! I'm a union thug!

Unknown said...

He's also a blithering idiot.

chickelit said...

@pbAndj: I'm not an expert but something about your tone reminds me of Titus. You're not another alias for Titus are you?

wv = "ballsi"

MadisonMan said...

In Dane County, the difference between votes for County Executive and Supreme Court Justice was over 11,000.

It's not like the Co. Executive Race was ever in doubt.

Stop looking for bogeymen.

chickelit said...

MadisonMan said:

Stop looking for bogeymen.

Quit protecting your neighbor.

Sprezzatura said...

chick,

I do think that it's possible that the college drop out, lobbyist son, Walker hire in my link wasn't really the best candidate for the job. So, I was covering the incompetence base.

And, I don't ramble about my hog and bowl movements. Plus I don't like spaniels, rare or not. And, I'm straight. Other than that, there are some similarities.

Automatic_Wing said...

The outcome of the recount is a foregone conclusion, but at least it'll add some drama to the TV movie. The only question now is who plays the Kloppenstürmer - Barbara Eden perhaps?

jimspice said...

Speaking of which, did I just miss it, or has AA not commented on the Deschane hiring. Did I also miss her account of G.Walker's former intern and staffer, John Connors, being behind the pants-on-fire farmer-hater ad. I thought those were very interesting topics from a legal perspective.

Badger Down Under said...

Here;s a prediction: every instance of election official discretion, and there will be many, will be interpreted as fraud by the side hurt by that instance. But I continue to maintain that there will be long lost ballot boxes suddenly discovered.

I will also predict that human error will be far more significant than intentional fraud in determining the outcome.

I also predict that this Mequon story will prove to be a big batch of nothing. It would be ridiculously easy to prove: match the number of ballots issued with the number of people showing up to vote, the number of votes submitted, the number of spoiled ballots, and the number of unused ballots. If those numbers do not add up to the original number of ballots, something is wrong. Just off the top of my head, I'd say the shredded ballots, if it in fact occurred, consisted of voided ballots to keep them from getting mingled into the valid pile. That would be good security practice, especially if the numbers were recorded.

And for those of you with twisted knickers over voting machines, they are used in only 2 counties and 1 municipality. see

Kenneth Mayer, etc., etc.

http://gab.wi.gov/elections-voting/voting-equipment/voting-equipment-use

KCFleming said...

What happens to a nation when the people begin to find the government is illegitimate?

DADvocate said...

I also hear she's an "expert" on environmental issues yet lacks a technical background.

If so, I have to wonder how much of an expert she is as opposed to having bought into a bunch of crap.

people tell me they believe partisan politics do not belong in our Courts.

Partisan politics is exactly why she may have been/was elected.

Unknown said...

If a Republican is ahead, the Democrats will find boxes of uncounted ballots in some unused warehouses, e.g. Washington Governor's race a couple of elections ago, and the Minnesota senator's a couple of years ago. In this case, a Democrat is ahead, Prosser is doomed. No need for recounts.

Chase said...

Something stinks here. Something stinks in this election. This is starting to look like another stolen Democrat election.

Placeholder said...

Partisan politics is exactly why she may have been/was elected.

Of course it was, just as it would've been had he been elected. Anyone can see that.

I also predict that this Mequon story will prove to be a big batch of nothing. It would be ridiculously easy to prove: match the number of ballots issued with the number of people showing up to vote, the number of votes submitted, the number of spoiled ballots, and the number of unused ballots. If those numbers do not add up to the original number of ballots, something is wrong. Just off the top of my head, I'd say the shredded ballots, if it in fact occurred, consisted of voided ballots to keep them from getting mingled into the valid pile. That would be good security practice, especially if the numbers were recorded.

Voter fraud against Prosser in Mequon? That's so ridiculous that I can hardly believe that even the most fang-dripping winguts would try to float that boat.

Here's what actually happened: A few housewives mixed up their anti-depressants and spoiled their ballots. They handed them to the volunteer at the polling place, who destroyed them on the spot per their standard operating procedure.

End of story. Come on, ya whining losers, get real.

Tully said...

Have all absentee ballots been received? Have all provisional ballots been certified and counted? Have all votes been reviewed by persons rather than machines, in each and every ward? Have vote totals been compared to total votes cast, ward by ward? Then same reviewed as to tallies per candidate? No? Then it's not over.

There will be a recount, the vote totals will change, and yes, it might reverse the balance. Wisconsin's last statewide recount (1989) changed the final margin by almost 450 votes -- over twice the margin we're looking at here. The state will automatically cover cost on recounts for margins less than 0.5%. Current margin here is 0.0136%, or 1 thirty-seventh of that required margin.

More popcorn, more beer. The circus is not over yet.

Harry Phartz said...

I do not know what the % tabulated by machine is – my presumption is that all but a handful are machine read. If so – and if the vote tabulation process works as well as it does here in FL (yes, Florida, where they learned a few things from 2000 and now actually run a pretty tight ship) - then I'd say the probability that a recount will tip the result in Prosser's favor is not good.

What I would do if I were in Prosser's predicament would be to simultaneously: a) pursue and monitor the recount, and b) look at the Milwaukee Police report on the 2004 election and the estimates of 5,300 ineligible voter casting ballots in that election (in Milwaukee alone). I would look for high density Kloppenburg turnout precincts (e.g., Madison and Milwaukee, as well as any seeming anomalies in rural areas) and concentrate on finding folks who turned out on Tuesday and cast ballots, who were in fact ineligible. If you could find a healthy multiple of the margin of victory in proven cases of ineligible voters, in high density Kloppenburg precincts, perhaps you could satisfy the standard which the courts would require to discard an election and require a new election. Since the link between voter and specific ballot cast is lost as soon as the ballot is cast, you cannot “back out” votes of ineligible voters who found a way to cast a ballot on Tuesday. You would have to show that the magnitude of the ineligible voter problem was large enough relative to the margin of victory that the validity if the apparent decision was called into question.

I don't think that I ever saw an election in Wisconsin tossed, but we had one in Miami in the late 1990's – one so replete with shenanigans that the Judge tossed the results and ordered a re-vote.

I think that Prosser has shown a certain resignation during the campaign – given how the campaign went, I'm not sure he can be counted on to direct the effort necessary to investigate possible grounds for invalidating the election. It would be a massive effort, would require enormous manpower and would only work if people were convinced he was really interested. That's a leaf Prosser has yet to turn. I dunno...

Placeholder said...

@Tully, yes, of course. It helps that the taxpayers will finance it. What I don't understand is why Prosser is out raising money for the recount, when the state pays for it. Bribe money or something?

veni vidi vici said...

Why is it that apparently every election in WI is doomed to end in recount litigation?

tim maguire said...

There's something especially distasteful about a judge challenging an election outcome.

A judge of all people should just accept it and go do something else.

Carol_Herman said...

She didn't win. But, yes. Prosser lost. If he couldn't get 50,000 more votes ... to give a bigger spread ... then you've got to learn what motivates people!

Mr. Peepers made an impression on par with David Souter's.

Carol_Herman said...

You know, Sandra Day O'Connor doesn't have a great reputation. (She was smarter than Rehnquist. And, figured out the psychology of being the 5th vote ... to the point where she sold this ability to 4 other Supreme-O's. Giving her the ability to write opinions.

Probably as dishonest as William O. Douglas. But he served longer.

Presser? He had the attention of the nation ... and he couldn't grab hold of a winning argument.

Ten years on the Supreme's ... he should have had "LEMON TESTS" and whatnot ... to point to as legal brilliance.

Kloppenberg may want to have a reputation that will be better than the "wisest Latina." And, Kagan's. Even as she sticks a fork in Walker's union busting ... the legislature can vote, again. Can she write an opinion that will make the union thugs look ethical?

Carol_Herman said...

11,000 ballots in Dane County ONLY had one name checked off: Kloppenburg's. No other category received a single vote!

And, of course, these ballots came in to the count, last in line.

Prosser still didn't do good enough to nail the difference. (As Hugh Hewitt said and wrote, back in 2004. Republicans have to vote in high enough numbers so that elections can't be stolen.

More than a million votes were cast. Prosser just didn't make a good enough impression.

MikeR said...

I don't understand those who are saying that Prosser should just accept the result. Earlier in the night, when Kloppenburg was slightly behind, everyone was saying that there will surely be a recount. And why shouldn't there be? A 200 vote spread is extremely small.

Lance said...

200 votes out of 1.5 million . . . I don't know how anyone, in good conscience, could NOT demand a recount. Even innocent error could account for a margin that tiny, much less fraud (Chicago North).

For the sake of the integrity - and simple accounting - of the democratic process, we need to be certain. While she may be right in the end, I think Kloppenburg was premature in declaring victory.


What makes you think a recount would be any more accurate, or any less fraudulent?

Alex said...

50.0001% is a MANDATE folks! But Walker with 52% is nothing.

paminwi said...

Hey, Badger Down Under - you have never obviously worked as a poll worker. YOU NEVER DESTROY BALLOTS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE! There are procedures to be followed for ballots that need to be voided.

I have worked as a poll worker and there are procedures set up for EVERYTHING and every worker should speak up if they see anything that deviates from the rules.

What I have a concern about is the ballots in Milwaukee that were marked with a pencil instead of a pen. Since when are ballots marked with a pencil? I heard an interview on the radio with one woman who complained and that told her it was a pencil or nothing. Curious!?

Brian Brown said...

How does one "declare victory" with a straight face when the margin is just over 200 votes out of 1.5 million cast?

Was she joking?

MikeR said...

"What makes you think a recount would be any more accurate, or any less fraudulent?" Dunno. Why do we do recounts? Isn't that we think it might be more accurate to go over things again carefully?

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gabriel Hanna said...

I don't know what the margin of error on counting votes is. I know a lot of people seem to think it must be zero.

But if it's not zero, there must be some election with N total votes in it, that is won by n votes, with n being smaller than the expected margin of error.

Which means you can recount as many times as you want, and you are going to get a different answer every time you do it.

I don't know if n for this case is 200 votes, 2000 votes, or 2 votes.

section9 said...

No. Klop's Union Goon advisors told her to declare victory with 200 votes under her pccket because Possession is 9/10ths of the Law.

jimspice said...

Re: Deschane and Connors

Nope. I didn't miss it. I did a site search and though there are a few mentions in comments, A. Althouse is silent on these issues. Come to think of it, the entire conservative Wisconsin blogosphere has been amazingly mum on these developments, with one or two tepid exceptions. Gee, I wonder why that is?

MikeR said...

Gabriel, isn't it reasonable that the margin of error is smaller in a recount than in the first count?

Tully said...

What I don't understand is why Prosser is out raising money for the recount, when the state pays for it.

For the same reason that Kloppenburg's people will ... to pay for their own observers and lawyers to monitor the count and wrangle over contested/contestable ballots and irregularities. And to ensure that the same standards are applied statewide by the over 1800 municipal clerks who handle elections, some of whom are certain to try and cover up any shenanigans to save face or for partisan reasons.

Anonymous said...

one news source has 227,577 votes cast for Kloppenburg and Prosser, and just 222,761 cast for the County Executive candidates. Seems sort of odd.

Some people voted in just that one race. I saw many ballots like that.

Anonymous said...

What I have a concern about is the ballots in Milwaukee that were marked with a pencil instead of a pen. Since when are ballots marked with a pencil?

The Tosa ballots clearly said, at the top of the ballot, marker or pencil. Tosa switched to pencils from markers because the markers cost $1 apiece and go dry quickly.

The ballot machine kicked out mismarked ballots (if there was a bad erasure) and the voter voted again.

And you are correct - the ballots are not destroyed. There is a place to keep bad ballots and ballots that were activated (by the initialing by two poll workers) but not used in voting. All those ballots are sent back to the clerk.

MadisonMan said...

How does one "declare victory" with a straight face when the margin is just over 200 votes out of 1.5 million cast?

An election has a binary result. You either win, or you lose.

Do you agree that she did not lose, given that she received more votes than her opponent?

Brian Brown said...

Do you agree that she did not lose, given that she received more votes than her opponent?


Um, how can you possibly say she "won" given the fact that the margin is under .001%?

Again, you seem to enjoy being obtuse.

MadisonMan said...

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

I'd say you're still in the denial stage.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@MikeR:

Gabriel, isn't it reasonable that the margin of error is smaller in a recount than in the first count?

There is always a margin of error on a measurement, even if you are supercareful.

Is there some reason to think that a recount is an inherently more accurate measurement? I don't think so. The problems are the same in each case. You have a certain number of ballots. You have to make sure that all those, and only those, that were legally valid votes are counted, and then you have to count them correctly. There's no reason to think that a recount is necessarily more accurate than the initial count, unless you assume that people were careless before and that they are being more careful now. I'm pretty sure that they are equally conscientious every time they count.

The chances of one person making a mistake may be millions to one. But you have millions of votes to count and hundred or thousands of people involved in counting them. A recount is going to give you a different set of mistakes from the first time around, but not necessarily fewer mistakes.

Brian Brown said...

I'd say you're still in the denial stage.


Hysterical.

Yes, because the "win" by an absurdly statistically small margin is a fact!

I just know you opposed the Gore recount.

I just know you opposed the Al Franken recount.

Keep flailing, bozo.

Brian Brown said...

I'd say you're still in the denial stage.


It is quite clear you're projecting.

But again, you're one of the most obtuse (and not that bright) people posting here.

Gabriel Hanna said...

@Madison Man:

An election has a binary result. You either win, or you lose.

Sir, you have more education than that. There is a true and correct election result floating in the Platonic ether somewhere, but we have only statistical methods to divine it, and the binary result we determine as the outcome of the election, using the best means we have, has a finite probability of being different.

We indicate this probability by "the margin of error". The margin of error is not itself known exactly, and the election results have only a probability of being within it.

You are being deliberately disingenuous. See also the 2004 Washington recounts, where Rossi won the first two by a few hundred votes and Gregoire the last one by a few hundred. Gregoire is the one who ended up being the governor.

Alex said...

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

I'd say you're still in the denial stage.


No I'm not in denial that WI just flushed themselves down the crapper. But I'm laughing at all of you.