UPDATE: 8:32 p.m. CDT - Did I speak too soon? Per churchlady in the comments, there is a report of a break in the chain of custody of a bag of ballots from Delafield, in Waukesha County. I don't know anything about this source. Does anyone else? http://www.politiscoop.com/...
UPDATE 2: 9:43 p.m. CDT - Chatter on the internet leads me to believe the politiscoop story is overblown at best. Not many total votes in Delafield.
I can't give any new numbers, as you will read below, but Day 2 of the recount in Wisconsin's April 5th election for Supreme Court reportedly continued without any major ballot issues on Thursday. Allegations made by JoAnne Kloppenburg in her request for a special investigation are generating a little heat, though!
When Kloppenburg announced her campaign's official request for a recount, she also asked for an independent investigation into specific election irregularities, including long lines in some precincts, the use of photocopied ballots, and delays in vote-reporting in Waukesha County.
The investigation, if ordered, would be separate from the review already conducted in Waukesha County by the Government Accountability Board (GAB), and would include an inquiry into whether conservative incumbent David Prosser met with Republican Governor Scott Walker on the evening of Wednesday, April 6th. Kloppenburg alleges that Prosser and Walker met in Walker's office after Kloppenburg had declared victory but before Waukesha County Clerk Kathie Nickolaus announced she had not included 14,000 votes in her election night totals. Those votes gave Prosser a 7,000 vote lead.
Kloppenburg's campaign manager has sworn in an affidavit that she has knowledge of multiple witnesses to the alleged meeting. She has not identified the witnesses.
Read this forceful and angry denial from Prosser right after the allegations were made, as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on April 21st:
Prosser said since the election he never met in private with either the governor or any of his staff.
"The idea that I would go to the governor's office is just patently untrue. There is not a shred of evidence. That is pure malice," Prosser said Thursday in an interview.
Walker aide Chris Schrimpf also denied Wednesday the two officials met on April 6.
In an interview today, however, Prosser went from describing the allegations as "patently untrue" and "pure malice" to "I can't remember if I went to the Capitol that night. My staff seems to recall that I did." Prosser says that if he did go to the Capitol, he did not see Governor Walker but says he might have stopped at the Governor's office to pick up some ceremonial pens to give to visiting international students.
Interview here, hat-tip GrumpyOldGeek: http://www.wkow.com/...
Prosser says he spent most of Wednesday "...in Delafield, trying to figure out what the hell was going on." He also says that IF he went to Walker's office that night, he never went past the receptionist's desk.
(SNARKY EDITORIAL COMMENT by GGB: Presumably those international students have left the country by now and can't be located. And isn't that nice of Prosser? He stopped trying to figure out what the hell was going in his election long enough to drop by the Guv's place to pick up souvenirs for some people who can't even vote in Wisconsin.)
Seems like he remembers a lot of detail for an event he can't recall.
Prosser made the remarks in a phone interview with the ABC affiliate in Madison, WKOW. The anchor of their newscast introduced the story by saying it appears Prosser "...may have been right outside the Governor's door."
Just some background ...Delafield is in Waukesha County. Kathy Nickolaus worked for David Prosser when he was the Republican caucus leader in the Wisconsin Assembly.
Walker's office still denies the meeting, but it's worth reviewing these comments made on Wednesday, the day after the election, by Walker:
[Speaking of a recount] As long as the rules are clear, as long as there aren’t ballots somehow found out of the blue that weren’t counted before, things of that nature, as long as everything’s above board, I think that’s fair.
...and by Walker's campaign manager the same day:
We are assembling our legal team and continuing to watch our vote totals," Nemoir said. "We are encouraged by the turnout and believe in a record-setting Supreme Court election there’s plenty of reason to believe there’s unrecognized opportunity to deliver a victory.
The thought plickens, said Reverend Spooner.
Meanwhile, in ballotville, the GAB posted this late in the day:
Day Two Summary
Posted: April 28, 2011 - 5:02pm
Day Two of the statewide recount went relatively smoothly, with G.A.B. staff continuing to answer many questions from county clerks. There were no reports of major problems.
There have been some anomalies reported, which have been resolved by individual boards of canvassers. These are similar to issues we encounter in other recounts. We anticipated these types of issues and many are addressed in our Q & A section on the website.
The updated spreadsheet that was posted late Wednesday was removed from this page early Thursday when we discovered some data entry errors. Some errors occurred in transferring information from clerk e-mails to the spreadsheet, and some were due to typos by clerks. We have been working today to ensure that the data we post is as accurate as possible. Please keep in mind that these are unofficial numbers.
We expect to post the spreadsheet, which will contain numbers from Wednesday’s recount activities, around 6 p.m. today. It will not contain numbers from today because many of the counties are working late tonight.
I can confirm that there appeared to be some odd entries in last night's spreadsheet, but the new spreadsheet posted today at 6:05 and viewed by me a few moments ago has only 52 precincts and no totals. I'm confused. Last night's file had 502 of 3,602 wards reporting. Is today's a "correction only" file, or were there really that many errors on yesterday's file? Did someone forget to save? Perhaps we'll find out tomorrow.
The spreadsheet is available for viewing on the GAB recount page. If anyone can look at it and explain what's going on, I'd appreciate it.
Wow! This looks really cool!