From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
With 10 of 11 Waukesha County wards still out -- including all of those in Menomonee Falls -- party spokesman Graeme Zielinski said, "We believe the election in this contest has been tampered with by Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus.
"She’s sitting on votes. We believe that right now, there are severe irregularities in Waukesha County once again. We believe the very fate of the Wisconsin Senate hangs in the balance and is in the hands of a woman who has already shown extreme incompetence.”
“We believe there’s dirty tricks afoot.”
Democrats are demanding an investigation or at least an explanation, Zielinski said, and he added the party’s legal team is looking into it.
Shortly after Zielinski made that statement, results came in from nine Menomonee Falls wards, swinging the lead to incumbent Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills).
I was in downtown Madison to watch the live broadcast of The Ed Show tonight. I wore my orange polo shirt to pay homage to my friends on Daily Kos. Maybe you saw me standing behind Senator Jon Erpenbach :)
During the extended coverage that spilled over to the time slot for The Last Word, Ed announced that Waukesha County officials said there would be another hour delay in vote reporting from Waukesha County. This was already almost three hours after the polls closed. The reaction from the live audience was complete and utter disgust. A few cries of "bullshit" echoed off the surrounding buildings. Sounded like it came from a guy wearing an orange shirt. Then the crowd started chanting "Fraud Takes Time! Fraud Takes Time!"
Don't tell me this was a legitimate election. It was not. We were standing near Senator Lena Taylor from Milwaukee and we asked her what we could do - if we could file a complaint. "There has to be a federal investigation," she answered.
Sadly, there is little else we can do. I look forward to hearing more about the charges of vote tampering alleged by the Democratic party, but at this point, we just have to assume fraud in all Waukesha County elections and work around it.
Please note - taking two seats is not a complete loss. There is one Republican Senator, Dale Schultz, who did not vote in favor of Scott Walker's union-busting bill. He is a legitimate moderate Republican who was recently touring the district of one of his Democratic colleagues on a listening tour.
I have no idea if he would consider switching parties, but it might be worth someone talking to him about it.
We also have to hold the two Democratic seats that are scheduled for recall elections next Tuesday, August 16th. We have a weak firewall with Schultz in place, but if the Republicans can win with one of their extremist challengers next week, they can put Schultz out to pasture and continue their assault on the middle class.
Chins up. Nobody said this would be easy. We picked up two seats in REPUBLICAN DISTRICTS, and forced the right wing to drop 30 million dollars to ONLY LOSE TWO SEATS and maintain a one vote majority in the Senate. They might have deep pockets, but we still have the people. We're not going anywhere.
Tue Aug 09, 2011 at 11:20 PM PT: Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Mike Tate is now walking back the vote-tampering charges:
"Though we believe that Sandy Pasch was able to battle Alberta Darling to a virtual tie, on her turf, we will not pursue questions of irregularities. Those heat-of-the-moment statements came in light of the uncertainties that arose from a recent election, known too well"