The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    The Republican judge won in Wisconsin

    By Flavius on Thu, 04/07/2011 - 9:44pm |

     

    Prosser beat Kloppenburg by more than 6000 votes.. 

     

    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/04/07/us/AP-US-Wisconsin-Supreme-Court-Election.html?_r=1&ref=

     

    Comments

    Something rotten here. ^


    by cmaukonen on Thu, 04/07/2011 - 10:09pm

    Is that Wisconsin? Where's Green Bay?

    I have no doubt the revised numbers are right. They're in Macy's window and will be examined to a fare the well.

     Waukesha has 198 precincts. There were around 14,000 missing votes  from  Brookefield-a Milwaukee suburb- which must have represented something between 25 and 40 precincts, say 35. . AP reported that all 198 precincts were in

    Presumably the clerk made several partial submissions on election night in one of which she reported she was including the votes from  45 precincts, but actually included the votes from only 10 ,failing to transmit the votes from the  35 Brookefield percincts..

    That must have meant that that particular tranche had a precipitous reduction in the number of voters/ precinct.compared to the other Waukesha ones .I expect the central  vote accumulating system is programmed to highlight  such a discrepancy. And did. And the Waukesha Clerk was directed to investigate. 

    If so , for the last two days there have been a number of cheese heads who knew Prosser was about to receive this windfall.. Including possibly Prosser. And  Walker. .    


    by Flavius on Thu, 04/07/2011 - 11:00pm

    Why do you have no doubt these new numbers are right?  You've got one "presumably" followed by an "I expect" on top of an "I expect."  You've done some fantastic reporting on this, so I'm genuinely interested in your take.  But I haven't read anything yet to remove my doubt.  On the contrary.  This one stinks.  So like the Reverend Mother in The Sound of Music, I'm gonna try to keep faith in my doubts.  And yeah, revised numbers, meet fine tooth comb. 


    by kyle flynn on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 12:26am

    How convenient.


    by kyle flynn on Thu, 04/07/2011 - 10:59pm

    What the hell???

    "A conservative incumbent surged to a commanding lead in Wisconsin's hotly contested  Supreme Court election Thursday, after a predominantly GOP county's clerk announced she had incorrectly entered vote totals in the race seen as a referendum on Republican Gov. Scott Walker's divisive union rights law.

    Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said more than 14,000 votes weren't reported to The Associated Press on Tuesday due to "human error." Nickolaus previously worked for a GOP caucus that was under the control of Justice David Prosser, who was speaker of the Assembly at the time and who now stands to benefit from the clerk's error.

    "This is not a case of extra votes or extra ballots being found," Nickolaus said. "This is human error, which I apologize for." Nickolaus said the most significant error occurred when she entered totals from the city of Brookfield, a suburb of Milwaukee, but they were not saved.

    Nickolaus was given immunity from prosecution in a 2002 criminal investigation into illegal activity by members of the Republican Assembly caucus where she worked as a data analyst and computer specialist. Prosser, who as speaker of the Assembly in 1995 and 1996 controlled the same caucus, was not part of the investigation. Nickolaus resigned from her state job in 2002 just before launching her county clerk campaign.

    The corruption probe took down five legislative leaders, all of whom reached plea deals."


    by quinn esq on Thu, 04/07/2011 - 11:16pm

    Something fishy is definitely going on here ...


    by MrSmith1 on Thu, 04/07/2011 - 11:54pm

    It's SOP to wait till all the votes are in, and then come in with an over the top surprise tranche from the 'winners' supporting district.


    by NCD on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 1:39am

    Yeah, there are famous cases where a political machine probably  delayed reporting results from  a favorite district and used them at the last minute- suitably doctored-  to shift the result. Texas in 47 and Chicago in 60 are supposed examples.If the Republicans did want to keep open the option of last minute ballot- box stuffing this was exactly the sort of fairly populous and  heavily conservative  which  they would have  chosen.

    As to kyle flynn's question ,I have "no doubt" that the revised Waukesha totals are now correct because the revision was done so publicly it  will be intensively scrutinized.

    But of course like everyone I have plenty of doubt about how it happened. My "probably" and  " expect"  apply not to this revised result per se  but to my attempt at reconstructing  how so inaccurate a result could have escaped notice. Short answer. It couldn't.

    My suspicions were the opposite of being  reduced by the County Clerk's lame explanation.Even tho the overall Waukesha turnout was up that would not have obscured the discrepany when she reported the tranche of results theoretically including the Brookefield precincts ( with no votes) and because of those zero vote precincts the average turnout/precinct was down, in dramatic contrast to the trend in the County. Sorry, I don't think that took 36 hours to notice..  

    I suspect Prosser and Walker slept pretty well Wednesday night. .  

    This fiasco combined with a  democrat replacing Walker as Milwaukee county executive might help  the proposed recall . The  Waukesha wiggle should be useful in soliciting signatures on the petitions. And control of Milwaukee will affect the balance of foot soldiers for the ground campaign. 

    God sees the truth but waits.

    Checkov

     


    by Flavius on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 6:58am

    A link to thepeoplechoose's blog entry at Once Upon a Paradigm gives a perspective on the computer part of it.

    Mebbe read this first.  Especially the update part at the end.

    And from a year ago on the county clerk.

    Sometimes interesting times are too interesting.


    by wabby on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 9:09am

    And here is an interesting entry I just read over at Michigan Liberal.

    Seems this blogger, who has had actual business dealings with the County Clerk at the center of this 'find', agrees with you, Flavius. 


    by wabby on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 9:32am

    Wow, very interesting. Given my experience in computer forensics, if she's guilty of shenanigans (and I don't find that hypothesis outrageous), I strongly suspect she'll be found out, barring some "accidental" fire in her office.


    by Verified Atheist on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 10:16am

    I would suspect a hard-drive crash is in the makings.


    by Beetlejuice on Sat, 04/09/2011 - 5:52am

    She might try that, but the data should still be recoverable, given enough motivation.


    by Verified Atheist on Sat, 04/09/2011 - 8:26am

    Wow, that battery story is hilarious.  How petty!  If even half of what they say about her is true, she's a formidable enemy.  Still, from what I've read today it looks like no matter what she might have tried to do, there's some legitimacy to the reasons for the miscount. Wish it weren't so.


    by Ramona on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 8:27pm

    Ramona, go read the link to once upon a paradigm. There's no such thing as a save...

    Access has never, in all it’s versions over the years needed a user to press a save button. When entering data in a form or a tabular view, the record that has the focus, if it is changed, upon navigation to the next record, the one previous is automatically saved.

    Her statement was worded so as to convince people who have no clue about programing, let alone using a simple database, a human mistake was the sole reason for the miss count. In fact, from what I read, it sounds as if she purposefully created a stand-aslone system exactly for the purpose of a miss count...kinda like paying back Democrats for all those illegal voters who turn up at the polls for elections.

    There's more to the story, if the Wisconsion GOPer's are willing to throw one of their own under the bus.


    by Beetlejuice on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 9:15pm

    Well, theoretically, you could have created your own Access interface that operates on a transactional basis, such that clicking on a "Save" button would complete the transaction, but that would require a fair amount of work and more know-how than this woman appears to have.


    by Verified Atheist on Sat, 04/09/2011 - 8:29am

    "Kloppenburg Seeks Open Records Request from Waukesha County":

    http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/04/08/kloppenburg-seeks-open-records-request-from-waukesha-county/

    Tweeted either by, or to Emptywheel: "Katherine Harris called; she wants her schtick back."


    by we are stardust on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 9:46am

    Does she have her own marine battery (see flowerchild link)?


    by NCD on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 10:56am

    Seems there are some issues about the way in which the lost ballots were brought out.

    url : http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/04/wisconsin-election-officials-...

    Here's an interesting tidbit to chew on ...

    In addition, as Jessica Arp from the local CBS affiliate in Madison reports, Kennedy told reporters Friday afternoon that that GAB was not informed by Waukesha about the problem until Thursday, before Nickolaus's press conference. Had the GAB known about it Wednesday -- when Nickolaus says she first discovered the matter -- Kennedy said they would have gone to the county in order to oversee the canvass, and let the press and campaigns know about it at that time.

    Sounds like someone wasn't following the rules so as not to raise doubts by the public the vote count was fair and impartial.

    And IMHO, I wonder why? I would think such a gross miss count, a computer inputting error resulting in the omission of 14,000-plus votes, should have been referred to a higher authority to give the public confidence no one was stuffing ballots after the fact. As it now stands, Prosser may have enough votes to stifle an automatic recount which shutdowns any questioning or investigation. And since the entire state is controlled by the GOPers, I have serious doubts they're gonna look into the matter unless they're forced to and there's no one capable of doing that.


    by Beetlejuice on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 8:37pm