The highly contested Wisconsin Supreme Court election will move into its third day of uncertainty after officials in Waukesha County discovered yesterday that mechanical errors left more than 14,000 votes unaccounted for because of human error.
The reconfigured votes for Waukesha, a predominantly Republican voting county, brings the incumbent Justice David Prosser 7,500 votes ahead of Assistant State Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, who observers believe is the more left-leaning of the candidates.
If other counties throughout the state do not find substantial differences between the numbers reported Tuesday and the vote counts established during the canvassing period this week, Prosser’s newly found lead could stand to establish a firm victory.
A statement from Kloppenburg’s campaign said it would be filing an open records request to find out how so many votes were overlooked.
“Wisconsin voters as well as the Kloppenburg for Justice campaign deserve a full explanation of how and why these 14,000 votes from an entire city were missed,” the statement said. “To that end, we will be filing an open records request for all relevant documentation related to the reporting of election results in Waukesha County, as well as to the discovery and reporting of the errors announced by the County.”
Assembly minority leader Rep. Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, said in a statement an investigation was warranted because of Waukesha county clerk’s history. County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus worked in the Assembly Republican Caucus and had previously been advised to reexamine the election management in the county.
“She has been the subject of multiple complaints from other Waukesha officials on how she handles elections and keeps public information to herself outside the official county system where others can verify it,” the statement from Barca’s office said. “It is especially troubling that she waited more than 24 hours to report the startling discovery and then did so at a press conference and only after she verified the results.”
Barca said releasing the information to the press before verifying it “makes it all the harder to challenge and audit the integrity of the vote.”
In Tuesday’s election, more than 1.5 million votes were cast for the Supreme Court race, though the two candidates found themselves with only 204 votes separating Kloppenburg’s initial victory over Prosser.
University of Wisconsin political science professor Barry Burden said developments in official vote tallies have been consistently changing which candidate is in the lead throughout the past two days.
“I think it’s going to be a couple more days before we have any kind of resolution,” Burden said. “This has essentially been a 50-50 race – we’re as close as we can get, so every decision with the ballots will count.”
The results of the canvassing period following Tuesday’s unofficial vote counts needs to be reported to the state by April 15, Burden said.
He said whichever candidate comes out behind at the end of the canvassing will most likely call for a recount, which he said could take up to three weeks. Following an initial recount, Burden said the losing candidate could request a second recount to be done by hand if he or she is unhappy with the results.
– The Associated Press contributed to this story
