UPDATE: bradblog has some shocking photos of yesterday's Brookfield ballot bags that were improperly sealed.
Sometimes political spin just winds itself into absurd knots. Right on cue, the right wing spinmeisters are trying to do a hatchet job on JoAnne Kloppenburg just as Waukesha County begins recounting Supreme Court votes from the city of Brookfield. Brookfield, once known as the Forgotten City, had its 14,000 votes omitted from the April 5th election night totals when County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus made a "human error" and forgot to save Brookfield's votes into her super-secret, custom-built, Republicounter 3000 Vote-O-Matic Machine™. That omission gave JoAnne Kloppenburg an apparent 200-vote win.
When the clerk admitted her error two days after the election, the Brookfield votes gave Prosser a big lead. Rumor is if Waukesha County Republicans can document one more miracle by their county clerk, she will become Saint Nickolaus. Merry Christmas, David Prosser!
Man, that spinning is making me dizzy. I don't know how those right-wingers do it. Two paragraphs and I'm ready to pass out.
Maybe some boring numbers from the Wisconsin Government Accountabilty Board (GAB) will help me regain my balance. The latest GAB summary:
As of 6:00 pm on Thursday, May 5, 2011, 2,862 Reporting Units have reported results, which have been reviewed by G.A.B. staff. That is approximately 79 percent of the of the 3,602 total Reporting Units.
So far, counties have recounted 1,124,236 votes, which is approximately 75 percent of the orginal votes cast in the State Supreme Court race.
Not all of the counted votes have been reviewed by the GAB, but those that have are included in the GAB's nightly spreadsheet. David Prosser shows a gain of 305 votes, while JoAnne Kloppenburg has gained 525, and write-ins have gained 228. That gives Kloppenburg a net gain of 220 votes, well shy of the 7,316 votes she needs to close the Brookfield gap.
The feisty challenger, JoAnne Kloppenburg, was on local radio this morning debunking various right-wing fairy tales about her and her campaign. It's worth a listen.
One of the stories she discusses concerns some Sauk County, Wisconsin nuns who had their absentee ballots rejected during the recount. It's true, but the spin put on it by Republicans is despicable.
From the AP via the Janesville Gazette:
A county attorney says the county clerk dropped off absentee ballots and applications at the Valley of Our Lady Monastery in Prairie du Sac and picked them up again on Election Day when they were counted.
But, during the recount of the race between Justice David Prosser and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, witness signatures were discovered missing from 18 absentee ballots.
Since the envelopes and the ballots purposely cannot be matched up (to insure anonymity of voters), 18 absentee ballots were selected at random from the 24 received for that ward and rejected. Prosser lost 14 and Kloppenburg lost 4.
Right-wing bloggers, radio hosts, and news sites have headlined the story with statements like "Democrats Reject Nuns Votes" and similar distortions. "The Democrats" had nothing to do with it. The witness-deficient ballot envelopes were discovered by the local canvassers who did what they are required to do by law.
There is some leeway on trying to determine voter intent in a recount, but witness signatures on absentee ballot envelopes are non-negotiable. No witness, no vote. Even if you're a cloistered nun.
Republicans have also tried to blame slow progress in the Waukesha recount on Kloppenburg observers. It's completely false. The delays are due to carelessless and disorganized vote-counting by Waukesha officials. See my diary from earlier today for further discussion on the problems in Waukesha County.