I simply do NOT believe this (although neither does anyone else.) ANOTHER recount election between Chicago and Lake Superior??? Surely you jest!
And there are all sorts of people on these boards saying this needs a WineRev-ian treatment.
There's been the usual GOP cry of election/voter fraud that is was not only covered by the MN Progressive Project, but is as common as mustard on bratwurst.
Frauding Fraudsters
But then came the news of the last 36 hours. A searchlight signal (a glass of wine spilling onto a sacred scroll?) was projected against low-hanging clouds. A red phone under glass rang. A tiny, reel-to-reel tape recorder had its tape self-destruct after 10 seconds.
What could I do? I have no choice. In the words of Otter, Faber College '63, "this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture!"
Lord, give me strength! Stiffen your morning coffee with something alcoholic and crawl below the fold with me!
CROSS POSTED at Minnesota Progressive Project
Just a Few Quick Diaries I'm Sure
Fortunately this will be a short series. I mean it only took 25 diaries for Mark Dayton to get certified as governor of Minnesota. And for Al Franken, well, I started writing about a week after that election in Nov. 2008. I KNEW that the recount would be done about December 5 so I could add a little local color for about 3 weeks or so and be able to say I had done my good deed for the Kossacks. And then....well, there were a couple of doomed motions in front of the MN Supreme Court and some Improperly Rejected Absentee Ballots, but all those would be tidied up by the end of December....and no one would ever make a court case out of it....
....and every morning at 6:00am was the sound of Cher singing to Sonny "I've got you, babe" in the Groundhog Day of the Franken-Coleman recount.......
But yes, I thought, this Kloppenburg-Prosser standoff in the WI Supreme Court struggle will be easy.
I mean Joanne wins by 204 votes or so out of 1.5 million ballots. Election was April 5. Official totals will be posted 10 days later on April 15. Piece of cheddar with a beer chaser!
If there is a margin of less than 0.5% there is a state-funded recount. So anything less than 7400 and its on. (Remember that number.) There's a good (though slightly dusty from lack of statewide use) recount process on the books. Its so straightforward and transparent that a) the GOP hates it, b) a caveman could do it, and c) even the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is capable of publishing a clean story about it here:
Wisconsin Recounts
And now all HELL has broken loose! Good grief!! The manure from the dairy barn has hit the radiator fan and is splattered across the state (while hissing on the engine....pwhew!!)
ELECTORAL
First there is the matter of Waukesha (WAWK-eh-shaw) county, (so square its channeling its inner Colorado) one notch west of Milwaukee (City and County on the shore of Lake Michigan). The population is about 384,000 for the whole Wauk box. The county seat is the namesake city of Waukesha (pop. 70,178). There are other fair sized places like New Berlin (39,000+), Brookfield (37,000), Muskego (24,000), Menomonee Falls (37,000) and Brookfield (39,000).
The county was sort of a standard brand Wisconsin county with dairy farms and small businesses until about 40 years ago. Then the combination of white flight and suburban sprawl from Milwaukee spilled over the county line into those cities above. They grew smartly and moved a purple county steadily more and more into the Republican column for elections.
County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus is the go-to official for elections. Friday morning, in a tear-filled press conference, she announced she had committed a human error in entering election returns into the county totals. She said she's missed about 7500 net to Prosser votes. And she apologized.
Channel 3000 covered the story here:
Waukasha-Ker!
WTF? Yelled all the Kossacks and swung into action!
Kossack Chris Bowers put it on the front page here:
7500 votes?
Kossack Troutfishing discovered Ms. Nickolaus has a HISTORY of "discovering" ballots in this diary:
Not the First Time!
Kossack Cieran crunched Kathy's numbers and has given us the meme: "If all this doesn't smell fishy to you, you should have your nose checked."
Double Checking the numbers
Kossack Jud Loudsbury weighed in that maybe it truly IS human error (and its important we keep that in mind; investigate like hell but remember this could indeed be the case):Fraud....or Stupid?
Is there something ominous afoot? Major skullduggery? Even (yes, I'm going to go there) something of FLORIDIAN proportions? (see Palm Beach County, 2000)
Well Ericf over at the MN Progressive Project thinks so and explains why here:
Why this smells
Is something rotten in Denmark? (In this case that would be about 20 miles southeast of Green Bay along I-43, and only if the sewage treatment plant is being run by Scott Walker.) Well it could be too soon to tell, but (in honor of the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War) something sure smells like a dead rat behind the wainscoting here, and its not just me who thinks so.
GEEK
The cries of dismay have hit the Inter-tubes like the opening of floating season on the Apple River. The GOP is of course crowing over Prosser's "decisive victory" like the winner of a "Day and Hour the Junker Goes Through the Ice" Contest. Indeed, if Kossack Cieran is correct, Governor Scott Walker was crowing about that victory because of "missing ballots" BEFORE they came to light....like Wednesday.
A Little Early, Scotty?
The Democrats are crying foul.
But most important the Geeks are weighing in.
You see Nickolaus has a funky computer set up in her office, unlike any other County Clerk in the state. She says she has a "stand alone" personal computer in her office where she was doing this work. She also apparently has several years of IT experience so we can assume she knows her way around the old keyboard and can even grok a little C&xC5;: (whatever the hell that means to Microsofties out there.)
She of course claims that you need a user ID and password to access said computer set up. BUT the story is strong that at least 4 (and maybe more) people in the office know and USE that ID and password, so, while more common than everyone likes to admit, this looks bad.
As far as the actual "what's YOUR story on what happened?", she is calling it "human failure" to "Hit the save button" while apparently pulling information from an MS ACCESS program (database) to an MS EXCEL program (spreadsheet).
Now all of that makes less sense to me as the Saaremaa dialect of Estonian. I mean for me "database" usually implies a certain android from Star Trek; Next Generation's shoe size. And "spreadsheet" is when I'm putting down linen on the KING size bed (spreading the sheet of course........every 6 months whether it needs it or not!)
But fortunately the Geeks have risen up en masse and spoken to Ms. Nickolaus. And the Geeks said, "PPPPPpffffffffffftttttttt!" They are NOT impressed.
Kossack Cold Fusion put up a diary mid day and by the time I got home from work there were over 700 (!) comments. My skim/quick read is the IT types on these boards are NOT impressed with Kathy's explanation, mostly classifying it as an updated version of RoseMary Woods demonstrating how an 18 1/2 minute gap "accidentally" happened in the Watergate Tapes.
The Geeks Don't Think So, Kathy!
LEGAL/POLITICAL
Kloppenburg is NOT taking this lying down. She has filed a legal demand for all the records related to Waukesha's election, right down to DNA samples from the styrofoam coffee cups.
Statement
Joanne is an asst. attorney general. You can bet serious money she knows how to file such a demand to sweep up every crumb of evidence.
The Governmental Accountability Board of WI, which oversees elections at the state level, has announced they will NOT certify the results of the election until they are satisfied about what went down in Waukesha County:
No Certification
Kossack LeftyCoaster added a few more bits here:
In case the 1st Link ain't enough for You
Nonetheless, Kossack GilesGoatBoy, who has provided sterling coverage of the protests and other Wisconsin developments for weeks on end cautions us NOT to put too much weight on the upcoming probe:
Less that Meets the Eye?
ANNNDDDD.........
How serious is Kloppenburg about fighting this? Well Kossack SunsetMagnolia brings us important word from the WI New Media source "Capital Times".
Blaze that Saddle!
Ms. K has hired on a lawyer: Marc Elias!
Fans of the Franken-Coleman Senate Recount will remember Elias was THE hired gun for Franken, a tall, baby-faced youngster of (now) 42 who is an absolute pro in the highly exotic field of election law. (Most law students and lawyers go into standard brand, bland law like real estate, probate, corporate, taxes, etc. Oh, there are fads to be sure. The last few years the specialty of Banking Law: Ripping off the Treasury has been a very good field. But election law is esoteric and a real head turner; sort of like building your law practice in Laramie by specializing in Wyoming Admiralty Law.)
Elias is absolutely unbending for his clients and relentless in both sniffing out fraud and defending small-d democratic elections. A superb choice for Joanne.
ANDddd....from the same link, it looks like Joanne is going to need it. Reports are that Prosser has also lawyered up by bringing in another cast member from Franken-Coleman: Ben Ginsberg!
Ginsberg was the evil (zombie)"brain" trust behind the Coleman legal effort. He only actually appeared in court for 1 week at Coleman's table before he pulled his "pro hac vice" out from the scrutiny of actual judges. But he was the endlessly spinning sideshow out in the hall, growling at Franken, calling election officials in MN from the Secretary of State all the way down to election judge Lena Olson Svensonnen of Hallock thieves and liars, snapping at the press, etc. You know, sort of a legal Glen Beck without the charm.
Ginsburg has real bonafides on elections.....not election LAW mind you (real law and Ginsberg tend to react like vampires and sunlight) but he was on the BUSH team in 2000, both in Florida and in DC with the hearing at the Supreme Court. After a high-tech hijack like that one he fancies himself the ultimate pro at ballot boosting. (The Coleman loss was a big dent in his armor.)
So Recount fans, Elias and Ginsberg have "entered the lists" (to quote our UK friends) and the battle is definitely joined.
It will likely be a quiet weekend officially (although why do I think the Madison protests may have fresh signage coming up?) but if something breaks I'll see what I can do about letting you know.
For the moment, and for yust a FEW diaries ya know, that's a lot of the latest from yust northwest of Lake Monona.
Shalom.