Prosser Has Net Gain With 10% of Waukesha County's Votes Recounted

With one week before the recount deadline, Waukesha County has nearly 10% of its votes recounted, resulting in a net change of 12 additional votes for incumbent state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser.

The Waukesha County Board of Canvassers had counted about 11,000 of the county's 125,070 original votes cast, as of mid-day Monday.

About 48% of all votes statewide had been recounted as of 12:50 p.m. Monday, or 718,230 votes of the approximately 1.5 million cast, according to the state Government Accountability Board. That did not include votes from 27 reporting units that were being reviewed by state elections officials.

May 9 is the deadline for completing the recount, which was requested by challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg after she lost by a margin of 7,316 votes or less than one-half of one percent in a race that became a referendum on Gov. Scott Walker's near elimination of public employee collective bargaining rights. 

In Waukesha County, tabulators were reviewing Town of Genesee ballots Monday morning and planned next to recount votes from the City of Oconomowoc, said Ellen Nowak, chief of staff for Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas.

Waukesha County elections officials worked Wednesday through Saturday and as of Saturday evening, Prosser had a net gain of 12 votes compared to the original votes certified from those communities, Nowak said.

Counted so far are all or parts of the towns of Brookfield, Delafield, Eagle and Genesee, villages of Chenequa and Nashotah and City of Delafield.

There was a dispute during the Town of Delafield recount when identification for one of three ballot bags was not marked on an inspection sheet. After an objection by representatives of Kloppenburg's campaign, former Waukesha County Circuit Judge Robert Mawdsley and the Board of Canvassers decided to open and recount all three bags of ballots. 

For stories, photos and video of the Waukesha County recount, see this link.