Wisconsin election worker’s find of uncounted ballots certain to draw scrutiny

[Playinghardball]

Source: Raw Story

Update: Dems cry foul as massive cache of votes was reportedly stored on a former Prosser aide's personal computer

Unofficial returns on Wednesday gave the union-backed challenger, JoAnne Kloppenburg, a narrow 204 vote statewide lead over Republican David Prosser.

But late Thursday, the county clerk in Waukesha, a Republican stronghold, said that votes not included in earlier totals had resulted in a net gain of 7,582 votes for Prosser.



Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/08/wisconsin-election-workers-find-of-uncounted-ballots-certain-to-draw-scrutiny/

[Puzzler]

1. "Recount" sound like the wrong way to frame the issue. How about "fraud" instead?

To hell with the 7,500 vote margin.

[emulatorloo]

2. For what is worth, that is a REUTERS story, not a Raw Story one

Just thought we should clarify, as Raw Story does do original reporting,

But they also collect stories from other sources, that on in from Reuters.

======

Even if what Kathy Nickolaus claims is true, this "fishy-ness" is what will be remembered in this election.

(However it seems like she has a "history" of finding votes after an election, there are a couple threads on her "mistakes" in 2006 today

[SnakeEyes]

4. Who's poor headline is that?

They aren't uncounted ballots. The ballots were counted, the counts weren't included in the final totals... allegedly.

[Igel]

10. You're probably wrong.

Most election districts have unofficial, election-night counts that are essentially early returns. The precincts submits a quick count to be totalled at election headquarters or the central computing facility does a quick tally. Nice, but utterly unofficial. It doesn't constitute the official count.

Anywhere from the next day to a couple of weeks later a BOE rep and the folks actually employed by the BOE--who attends varies by state--actually go and supervise the official count. They reconcile things, look at irregularities, rummage to make sure that all the votes that were validly cast are actually collected for counting, etc., etc., before tabulating the ballots for the official reporting to the state. They certify that count, not the unofficial election-night tally.

I've worked at a polling station. The report sent in masked a lot of irregularities that have to be examined; didn't include provisional ballots cast at the site; and had no supervision whatsoever.

In other words, they probably don't even have a final total yet.

[TalkingDog]

3. I live in a fucking Banana Republic....

nt

[SnakeEyes]

5. Nate Silver just posted on his site that things look legit

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/vote-counting-error-in-wisconsin-points-to-incompetence-not-conspiracy/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

:\

[Bjorn Against]

7. Even before the adjustment Waukesha County was 12th in voter turnout among 72 counties

After the adjustment they became fifth in voter turnout.

Nate Silver may be great at math, but no matter how well you know numbers it is impossible to determine this is legit based on turnout alone. The vote totals before the adjustment were not too abnormal statistically, as even he admits if you read his blog in full. Even before the adjustment Waukesha County had higher turnout than more than 80% of the state's counties, it is hard to argue that a county with a voter turnout that far above average is too low without actually studying the ballots as opposed to simply the turnout rates.

[No Elephants]

6. IIRC, batches of uncounted ballots kept turning up in Minnesota during the

Coleman Franklin recount.

[madamesilverspurs]

8. Is there any legitimate reason

for votes being stored on a personal computer?


-

[Rex]

9. NONE.

Even the election officials said this is irregular and out of the norm. Also, the clerk was given immunity for criminal activity on her part in a 2010 case.

But, people are saying this is legit without having all the evidence in yet.

I smell a rat; she is a computer programmer and her old BOSS was the incumbent trying to keep his seat!

I would say there is a personal conflict-of-interest here...but everyone can see that repukes seem to be able to come up with 'lost' votes when needed. :eyes: