No, there was no WineRev diary yesterday, so you didn’t miss one. Its just that very little happened on Sunday in the WI Supreme Court Recount and the situation around Waukesha County. I had an awful feeling that would be the calm before the storm, and I was right. A WHOLE lot of stuff went down Monday and I’m not sure if I’ve got a handle on it yet, but here goes below the fold.
The Little Old Lady in Waukesha
After the polls close in an election the poll workers in Wisconsin (and the other states as well) really get down to work. They add up the results for each race or issue and report them to the next higher level of government (city, county, state), trying as hard as humanly possible to be both accurate and fast (because everyone wants to know...by YESTERDAY!)
Then in the next day or two (actually the next 10, in this case, with the election on April 5, stretching down to April 15) everybody comes back off a good night's sleep, gets a solid eggs and brats breakfast with a side of spaetzle and settles in to CANVASS all the results, check for stuff that slipped, math errors (writing 56 instead of 65, that sort of thing). Pretty routine stuff...until this time.
Kossack avadoria broke the story about Ramona Kitzinger, an 80 year old (!) member of the Waukesha Board of Canvassers. That Board is the elections group that works with Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, who touched off this whole story at the end of last week.
Apparently Ramona (who is the Democratic observer; there was also "Pat" the Republican observer; each party gets to post an observer to look over the County Clerk's shoulder during the canvassing process) and Pat the Republican observer were dumbfounded by the sudden discovery of thousands of votes from Brookfield. Nickolaus told them a few minutes before the press conference that broke the story. Avadoria’s diary link is here:
Kitzinger Speaks Up
Kitzinger’s whole statement is there but what caught my eye was this:
I was not told of the magnitude of this error, just that she had made one. I was then instructed that I would not say anything at the press conference, and was actually surprised when I was asked questions by reporters.
That sure sounds like Nickolaus wanted the nice little old lady Democrat up there with her as window dressing.
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Oh and while we now have some idea of how Kathy Nickolaus treats little old ladies her grandmother’s age (Hey Kathy! If you really believe your Bible, what about Leviticus: “You shall stand in the presence of the gray head and honor the face of the old.” (19:32))
The folks at a blog site called Uppity Wisconsin (gotta love that name!) have a little audio interview of what at least one person who has worked for Kathy thinks of her leadership abilities and her contributions to office morale. (Scroll down to about the 4th item and click on the player
Live on Tape
GEEK alert!
From the blog The Political Environment we have this back and forth between Kathy Nickolaus and Norman Cummings, the Waukesha county Director of Administration.
(Bolding added by me)
The tug-of-war between Nickolaus and administration is evident in a March 8 memo from Cummings to Nickolaus in which he said hardware and software on the clerk's computers were "obsolete, not repairable and unsupportable." Without improvements, he worried that the elections system could be "inoperative and irrecoverable."
Nickolaus and Cummings both said the problem stems from when Waukesha County moved its network from an old, outdated Novell server - the processing unit that multiple personal computers tap into for shared services - to a Microsoft platform. Among other things, the conversion saved the county $500,000 a year, Cummings said.
Nickolaus' election system, however, depended on the old platform, so technicians restored a lone Novell server for her use, without a backup....a major upgrade to the election system was recommended, but Nickolaus has said it's unnecessary.
In March, Nickolaus said, she moved the data off that server and into her own stand-alone system. She has a backup on a second computer, she said. In addition, she said, as she programs for elections, she does frequent backups during the day.
Nickolaus said she was a programmer for 15 years before becoming county clerk. And she said her staff knows how to operate the system, so "if I get hit by a bus, this election is going to run just fine." (Bolding added by me)
So what all of us non-Geek types want to know is how impressive is Kathy Nickolaus running day-to-day operations on a Novell server setup? Is/was that any good? Especially coupled with software that another source noted stems from 1995? Apparently the change away from the Novell system was made around 2004 or even 2002, just to give you a time frame. (Cripes! Next we'll hear Nickolaus' email server was being run on an Atari joystick platform!)
The Government Accountability Board Investigates
The GAB oversees elections in Wisconsin and trains county clerks and election personnel on stuff regarding procedures, laws, etc.. The chairman is named Kevin Kennedy. There are several reports going around that Kennedy's first clue something was up in Waukesha County was when he tuned in for Nickolaus' press conference. (Way to impress the boss, Kathy!). So the GAB is looking into what the hell went down in the Waukesha-Ker. Monday Kennedy had this to say about the GAB investigation so far:
GAB Director Kevin Kennedy says the agency's investigation of spring election procedures in Waukesha County remains ongoing, but that the final canvass numbers in the city of Brookfield match the initial tallies from poll workers on Election Night.
"We don't see, at this point, any criminal activity, but we certainly see practices that need to be changed to bolster public confidence," Kennedy said.
One poster at The Political Environment noted that later in Kennedy’s statement referring to Kathy Nickolaus’ actions in the Waukasha-Ker included the phrase, her “apparent negligence”. That poster thinks that could be significant phrasing:
And the Wisconsin Bar tells us just how strong is that word "negligence," as "government officers or employees are not shielded from liability for 'negligent performance'" of their duties. See precedent in a relevant ruling at http://www.wisbar.org/...
But just a minute. There is another side to this. (Now watch closely, Faux Noise. This is what "fair and balanced" actually looks like.)
Kossack GilesGoatBoy has covered the Madison protests like a blanket and has kept me and all of us posted on day by day developments. GGB is NOT impressed by Kennedy or the GAB in general, so we might want to pay attention. Here is a comment from avadoria's dairy that bears reading.
By Wisconsin law... (33+ / 0-)
Recommended by:
The county canvass board is made up of three people. Usually the county clerk is one (unless the clerk is up for election), pus two others, one of which must be from a party other than that of the clerk.
Those two others are picked by...wait for it.. the county clerk.
Is it any wonder that Ms. Kitzinger was picked by Kathy Nickolaus? She's 80 years old, knows nothing about computers, and can easily be ordered around and told to not to say anything. She would be a sweet grandma, but there is no way in hell she should be the sole Democrat on the Waukesha County Canvassing Board.
This is absolutely disgusting. As I predicted, though, the toothless GAB will soon declare Prosser the winner, offer a mild rebuke to Nickolaus (which she will ignore), and tell the public to move along.
The GAB has a conflict of interest. It is their job to make sure county clerks are trained properly, so if they implicate Nickolaus in anything, they are admitting their own failure. They knew of these problems from the November election, and they did nothing. NOTHING!
Oh, and now they've contaminated the crime scene, so good luck with that federal investigation. I'm tired of people claiming that because the GAB is nonpartisan, they are going to be tough and thorough. They are not criminal investigators. They are retired judges reviewing whether administrative code was followed, and they have no interest in finding that their department f***ed up.
In fact, GGB is so hacked off at the GAB s/he posted a whole diary about it here:
The Probe is Toothless
So now you have it, friendly readers, a genuine, honest disagreement of opinion. Feel free to weigh in.
The, ah, Recount?
And what about that actual, you know, RECOUNT?
Again, the standard for a state-paid recount is if the margin is less than 0.5%. At just under 1.500,000 votes that’s just under 7500 votes. Since the Waukesha County mess involved a swing from Kloppenburg leading by like 204 votes to a 7500 vote break in Prosser’s favor that puts the margin just outside the free (to the candidates at least) recount.
But its not that simple. Kossack electiledisfunction read v. 1.0 of this series on Saturday and posted a rather acerbic yet mathematically important comment (edited by me for focus):
More lies and wrong numbers (0+ / 0-)
(………….)
There are 2 counties still not finalized their canvas.. "With Milwaukee and Outagamie counties still out, Prosser's lead stands at 7,310." [WisPolitics.com]
The automatic recount threshold is 0.5% which currently is approximately 7,460!!! so... depending on any adjustments from the last two counties to report, the margin is below the 0.5% already.
That's right folks... THERE CURRENTLY WILL BE FREE AUTOMATIC RECOUNT.
And that makes sense even before these last adjustments come in from Milwaukee & Outagamie and in the other 70 counties as well. After all, 204 for Kloppenburg, add 7500 for Prosser still leaves 7396 for Prosser’s margin, LESS than 0.5%.
Furthermore, even if there is no statewide, STATE-paid recount there is another avenue:
For the record, in Wisconsin, for margins of 0.5% to 2%, the losing candidate can pay $5 per ward for a recount, which is still under $30,000.. and probably much less than that.
And more narrowly to Waukesha:
Quit saying that Waukesha counties unreported vote totals are in any way related to who pays for a recount.
First of all, there can always be a recount here, and it isn't that expensive in Wisconsin.
Secondly, if there was some nefarious way to make up ballots, why not enough to not even have a recount at all? Why not turn in those 14,000 extra votes on election night and have the media declaring her candidate the winner. All of the garbage theories being thrown around make no sense. The Brooksfield votes were reported and published on the internet on election night. It is a simple coincidence that Prosser was winning Brooksfield by 7,403 votes. This number was published on election night. It is simply coincidence, especially because it has NO IMPACT ON THE RECOUNT.
by electiledisfunction on Sun Apr 10, 2011 at 08:19:10 AM CDT
And a further reason for a statewide, hand recount:
One final thing that seems to smell like sun-baked limburger cheese is this diary from Kossack jsamuel. He points out that both Waukesha and next-door Milwaukee county appear (and its maybe in the eye of the beholder, but still….) to have a good number of ballots that only marked the Prosser-Kloppenburg race and no other down ballot races.
Now in Milwaukee county that might indeed raise an eyebrow. There was a red-hot race for County Executive (Scott Walker’s old job when the destruction of the Wisconsin state government was only a gleam in his eye) between newcomer and progressive Abele and Walker clone Stone. (Abele won in a 61-39 rout) so you’d figure there would be a ton of ballots that would show votes in at least both of those races.
But what jsamuel is pointing out is that in both Milwaukee and Waukesha counties that is NOT the case. In particular, compared to the other 70 counties in Wisconsin these 2 appear (appear mind you) to have a statistically significant HIGHER % of ballots marking ONLY the Supreme Court race.
It may mean nothing.
But you know, if someone WANTED to throw a certain race a certain way, certainly an easy way to do it would be to just mark a bunch of ballots in just the race you are interested in. (Goes fast. No need to fudge with those down ballot thingys anyway. And, if someone is being paid piecework, so much per, well then you want a high count fast, right?)
Dairy here for your ponderings:
Something Strange among the Ballots
FINALLY, there came a late diary from Kossack yourguide last night that goes into greater depth in the Waukesha County shenanigans of County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus. Rachel Maddow did bullet points on these, but yourguide starts with the election of 2004, where, according to election officials (like Nickolaus) the voter turnout in 2004 was....97.63%. (NOT a typo!) I mean I've heard about political machines, but that's stunning!
97% Turnout!
Well I hope this helps. Obviously still a long way to go. Will the feds step in? Will Kloppenburg attorney Marc Elias announce some hard news from the lawyers' work this weekend? Will Prosser attorney Ben Ginsberg be photographed smiling, causing thousands of children who see the picture nightmares because now they've actually seen "the bogeyman"?
Not that much to add to all the yeoman work that happened yesterday while I was at work, but I hope having this recap and the links all in one place is of some use to all of you.
So thats most of the latest from yust nordwest of Lake Monona.
Shalom.
PS. I know there is a TON more going on in WI: budget hearings around the state (with lots of hard feelings all around), the state senate recounts (2 filed now, Kapanke and "Bed" Hopper, and both of them have drawn strong female opponents), the legal maneuvers and court proceedings re: the union-busting bill illegally passed, and yesterday's news that a Walker contributor has been charged with 2 felony counts of breaking campaign finance laws (and that this brushed Alberta Darling, another recall target). Its a ton and I can't possibly do it justice, but fortunately others are picking up various pieces, so I'm trying to focus on the recall. Something about sticking to the last I know (vaguely) something about.
ANDDDD....I can't stay around too long this morning. I'm going to try bicycling to work for the first time this season and I'm hoping by lungs and legs hold out.