by Steven Freeman
4/8/2011 9:36:00 AM
Diana's right that the Waukesha, Wisconsin election "snafu" is important and
potentially illuminating. Bradblog seems to be
the place to follow it best. Mark Crispin Miller has also been steadily
updating his site . As Jon Simon put it,
"The unfolding saga -- a miracle 7583 votes magically found for the
Republican candidate (found by a former employee of that candidate) in
another "proxy" election with seismic implications. Just exactly enough
votes to dodge the mandatory recount that would have revealed . . . who
knows?" [1] It's a sorry spectacle that would be seem incredible based on
everything taught in school and reported or opined on mainstream media (and
even the establishment-left like The Nation) about democracy. But in my
experience it's virtually emblematic of the way the system works:
1. The media tries to whip up excitement in a horse-race of an
election. Occasionally activists, and even voters, get interested - or even
involved.
2. The results come in; the winners are declared and the pundits
explain what it meant. Everyone goes home.
Except that it's all a sham, as exposed by the occasional election that must
be stolen more openly, when we see the hollow shell of "democratic"
processes.
Media (except, again, for the lunatics) ignore or accept
whatever sorry lame story comes forth;
Democratic party provides mainstream cover;
Candidate bails (we'll see what happens here)
This case, however, would seem almost a best case scenario for election
integrity to prevail:
1. The candidate, Kloppenburg, actually declared victory. She seems
unlikely to roll over.
2. isn't Wisconsin in one of the few clean enclaves of America, up near
Lake Wobegon?
3. Wisconsin also has a true progressive tradition and a high rate of
political activism, and these people are strongly supportive of Kloppenburg;
or at least strongly opposed to Prosser, an ally of a nemesis governor.
4. Wisconsin and Madison in particular still have the remnants at least
of an independent media.
5. It's not the spineless, witless, not-what-they-appear-to-be
Democrats behind Kloppenburg, but rather public service unions, who (a)
HAVE A LOT AT STAKE and (b) Know the System
So anyway, Diana's right. Let's see what happens. Those of you in Wisconsin
or in the unions, in particular, can you give us any reports?
[1] Jonathan Simon, ""Open Letter to the Media" PDF here
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From: electionintegrity@googlegroups.com [Diana Finch]
Sent: 08 April, 2011 12:22 AM
Subject: [ei] I hope everyone is following the story of the Waukesha Wisc
election snafu
A very thorough report of the goings-on is on bradblog.
Apparently the county canvas of the election results 2 days later found that
somehow the reported vote totals for one city were zero in every race, which
was not noticed at the time (?!?) - and the missing votes that have now
been added in put the Republican candidate ahead by just enough votes to
avoid a recount.
The County Clerk's explanation is that although she is sure she added the
votes in on election night, somehow the totals from one city were not saved
into her database, no one noticed, and that initial database provided the
results announced to AP.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8456
County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus keeps all the election results on her PC in her
office, and is the sole person to tabulate the results from the individual
districts and upload said results to the state site. She uses an Access
program for the data.
The more we think about this, the less sense it makes. Unless the County
Clerk did everything in secret, by herself, and nobody else ever checked
what she was doing???
huffingtonpost has a video of her press conference in which she reports the
'human error' involved and one brave reporter tries to get more of an
explanation out of her.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/07/david-prosser-wisconsin-supr...
rt_n_846431.html
I only hope that Wisconsin voters have the means and the wherewithal to get
to the bottom of this one . . .
And of course the County Clerk is a Republican and a former 13-year employee
of the Republican candidate who was losing and who now ends up winning
because of the restored 'missing' votes.
And instead of having a recount mandated by state election law and paid for
by state funds, any recount will have to now be the result of a legal
challenge and paid for by the challenging candidate's party.
Please comment and discuss!
Diana Finch
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