King County, Washington, meet Waukesha County, Wisconsin:
In one explosive stroke Thursday, the clerk in a Republican stronghold tilted the tight Supreme Court race in favor of Justice David Prosser by recovering thousands of untallied votes for the incumbent.
Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said Thursday that she failed to save on her computer and then report 14,315 votes in the city of Brookfield, omitting them entirely in an unofficial total she released after Tuesday’s election. With other smaller errors in Waukesha County, Prosser gained 7,582 votes over his challenger, JoAnne Kloppenburg, leaving the sitting justice significantly ahead for now amid ongoing official counting.
“I’m thankful that this error was caught early in the process. This is not a case of extra ballots being found. This is human error which I apologize for,” Nickolaus said, her voice wavering as she spoke to reporters.
The figures are still far from final in a race that had previously seemed almost certain to see a statewide recount. Around the state, elections officials Thursday were tweaking unofficial results from the day before that had put Kloppenburg, an assistant attorney general, ahead of Prosser by a razor-thin 204 votes.
But nothing compared to Brookfield, where the new totals give 10,859 more votes to Prosser and 3,456 more to Kloppenburg.
You can just imagine the howls of protest and outrage from the Right if something like this had happened to favor a Democrat. An awful lot of conservatives these days assume a priori that any late changes in a vote count that go against them are, by definition, examples of systemic, conspiratorial Democratic vote fraud. I suspect, though, that they’re okay with this change! Meanwhile, although I haven’t been reading liberal blogs or Twitter feeds this evening, I presume that certain corners of the Left are howling about this. It’s a conspiracy!! They’re stealing the election!! Scott Walker = Hitler!! For my part, I will assume — as I always do, regardless of which party is ahead and which is behind — that this is simple, legitimate, honest human error, unless I see actual evidence to the contrary. Just like the errors and irregularities in Florida, and King County, and Minnesota, and Bridgeport, and on and on. Election officials are human; this kind of thing happens. Join me, won’t you, conservatives and liberals, in making this assumption? In all future elections, regardless of who benefits from this sort of error? Don’t cry “fraud” unless there’s actual evidence of fraud?
Perhaps rather Unsurprisingly, let me be the first to Join you in making that Assumption. :}
As I understand it, the “error” was in the Clerk’s initial, unofficial, report to the Associated Press. If so, that’s not Even an “error” — not one that Counts (no pun intended 🙂 as such. “Around the state, elections officials Thursday were tweaking unofficial results from the day before…” No, they weren’t Tweaking anything. They were, and are, Compiling their Official results, to be officially reported to the State. That’s what Counts. That’s ALL that counts. And errors in That reporting, are errors. (And, there’ll probably Be some — and if so they’ll get Corrected. As usual.)
The news article I read yesterday (AP, I think) went out of its way to note the Republican partisan background of the Clerk (an elected official herself) and that she (like most election officials) has been the target of past Complaints (which evidently had nothing to do with alleged Miscountings or Frauds). Some Dem official was quoted as Calling for an Investigation.
Here’s hoping-against-hope that everybody follows your advice, Brendan. (Btw I speak as a rabid Union Goon who strongly supports the anti-Walker, pro-collective bargaining, cause.)
So I’m not really understanding this– are the judges in Wisconsin running on political platforms? What’s the point of voting one judge in ahead of the other or anyone being mad about one guy winning over the other? It won’t surprise me at all to see Republican Judges running at some point.
And on the topic of Wisconsin, who gives a crap if the democratically elected officials in Wisconsin want to blame Teachers and janitors for all their financial ills. If they want to screw all the government workers, let them. When you put Republicans into office you get what you deserve.
BTW, What time does the government shut down again tonite? I need to know when to pop the french champagne I bought at BevMo yesterday.
What ?
WHAT ?
Our Venerable Loy is a Lagomorphous Leporidic Unionist ? Say it ain’t so !
(ROTFLMFO!)
Of course Joe favors unions, he’s a smart guy.
Or Joe favors unions despite being a smart guy.
Y’all are missing the real news here, which is Sandy’s comment. Here we have a loony-left liberal:
1) Agreeing that judicial elections are retarded;
2) Agreeing that election results matter, and states should be subject to the fate afforded them by their choices of leadership and representation (what Sandy says for Wisconsin, ditto for California IMO); and
3) A government shutdown is a brilliant reason to break out the bubbly. You really think anyone outside the Beltway will notice? And even those of us in and around the Beltway will be doing backflips over the drop in traffic on our morning and evening commutes next week…..
Should have been: 3) “Agreeing that a government shutdown…”.
Perhaps this isn’t too far off topic?
ACORN Pleads Guilty to Voter Registration Fraud in Nevada
Also…
This is the only case in the country in which ACORN itself was named as a felony defendant. The organization, a one-time community-based activist group, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after dozens of its workers allegedly committed voter fraud in cases that led to numerous convictions.
If the cases led to convictions, then why are they saying “allegedly”?
Bias anyone?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/06/acorn-pleads-guilty-voter-registration-fraud-nevada/
“Perhaps this isn’t too far off topic?”
Perhaps not, gahrie — but If not, then just how many lightyears IS? ;>
“Bias anyone? http://www.foxnews.com [etc]… “
Asked & Answered. 🙂
“Our Venerable Loy is a Lagomorphous Leporidic Unionist ? Say it ain’t so !”
Alasdair, your dictional erudition always Daunts me & I’m too weary right now to Google your latest mystifying mumbo-jumbo but nonetheless, (a) indeed I Do say it Ain’t so & (b) begob dat don’t look like neither no Old Norse nor Braid Scots to me. ;}
From (I Think) “You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man” —
Union Goon: ‘Da contrack specifies da Maxium and da Minium…Ain’t choo nevvuh hoid o’ da Wagnuh Ack?’
WC Fields, as crooked carnival boss Larsen E. Whipsnade: ‘Oh, the Wagner Act, yesss, they used to Work for meee…I had to Fire ’em…Liquor Addicts…’
😉
Lagomorpha Leporidae …
Thus “rabbit Unionist” … right ?
(innocent grin)
hee hee…OKOK…rather harebrained, but still very bunny 🙂
One of my earliest puns went thusly …
“Attendees at a seance where the medium channeled the spirit of a feral leveret said that they found the experience hare-raising.”
Did you hear about the midget seer who was wanted by the police?
He was a small medium at large…..