Politics & Government

Kloppenburg Requests Recount, Special Investigation into Waukesha County Clerk

State elections officials said JoAnne Kloppenburg's campaign has asked for a statewide recount and a special investigator to review the Waukesha County clerk's "actions and words."

  • Full text of JoAnne Kloppenburg's statement on her recount request

State Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg on Wednesday requested a statewide recount of , saying even if the results didn't change, the scrutiny was required to restore confidence in this and future elections.

"A recount may change the outcome of this election or it may confirm it," Kloppenburg said. But a recount, she added, will resolve "an election that right now seems to so many people to be suspect." 

At a press conference during which she was cheered and jeered, the state Department of Justice prosecutor also called for a special investigator to be assigned to review Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus and her election processes for any irregularities, misconduct and recommended change in practices.

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She noted that after she said she discovered she had forgot to include the entire City of Brookfield's votes in her election night countywide tally, by failing to "save" the city's spreadsheet into her countywide database. , getting the figures from the city clerk a couple hours after the polls closed.

It was also unclear how much information about the error Nickolaus shared with the three-member Board of Canvassers before it certified the results and Nickolaus then held a press conference. Ramona Kitzinger, the Democratic member on the canvass panel said during Nickolaus' press conference that the revised countywide canvass numbers "jibed" with the vote tallies submitted by municipalities. But days after that, saying Nickolaus didn't tell her the cause or impact of the revisions until after the results were certified.

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The error was a game-changer in the election, which saw Kloppenburg declaring victory after midnight election night with a 200-vote lead out of nearly 1.5 million cast. Even the wider 7,316-vote margin equates to a 50.48 percent victory for Prosser, or less than one-half of one percent. Under state law, the cost of a recount is paid by the state if the margin is less than one-half of one percent; the candidate does not have to pay for it. Candidates will pay their own legal costs, as well as the cost of observers at the recounts in the state's 72 counties.

Kloppenburg also questioned how conservative bloggers had been leaked the bombshell news of the unreported Brookfield votes, hours before Nickolaus made her news public in a press conference.

Kloppenburg also challenged the ability of the state Government Accountability Board to conduct a fair investigation into Waukesha County. She said her campaign submitted documents to GAB Wednesday detailing "contact and communications" the state had with the Waukesha County clerk's office that she said "compromises" the state's ability to adequately investigate.

Pressed what evidence she submitted, Kloppenburg said the teamwork and support from state elections officials to the county clerk's staff "who are their colleagues would make it difficult for them to step back then and take the kind of more adversarial investigation that needs to take place."

Kloppenburg added: "If there are problems, we need to identify them and we need to fix them. If there was misconduct, we must hold those who perpetrated it accountable."

The state announced Tuesday that its four-day review of the Waukesha County canvass .

Prosser campaign spokesman Brian Nemoir criticized Kloppenburg's decision in a statement Wednesday.

"Apparently nothing will stop her from going ahead and wasting taxpayers hard-earned money to discover what election officials did on April 5th – that Justice David Prosser was reelected," Nemoir said.

He said the largest swing in a Wisconsin election recount was 489 votes — or 15 times fewer than Kloppenburg would need to emerge the victor.

"The only way she can achieve her nakedly political goal is to do one thing: challenge and disenfranchise thousands of Wisconsin citizens who exercised their right to vote April 5th and believed this election over," Nemoir said.

Nickolaus could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

But she said on Tuesday that she has and will continue to cooperate with state elections officials.  made by the Waukesha County Democratic Party.

Kevin Kennedy, director and general counsel of the Government Accountability Board, said in an email Wednesday night that his agency was responsible for investigating complaints about Waukesha County's vote tallies and processes.

"With respect to the public statements about our impartiality, it is the statutory responsibility of this agency to conduct these investigations," Kennedy said. "We are authorized to employ outside investigators, but they work under our direction."

Kennedy said his agency will be stretched thin handling a recount with more than dozen recall attempts of state legislators. 

Kloppenburg said she expected state elections officials at a planned court hearing Thursday to propose various recount procedures, including hand recounts.

She said she had reports of "widespread anomalies," including undervotes in Milwaukee and Racine counties, the Waukesha County vote revision, long lines of voters in Fond du Lac and other counties, requiring votes to be made on xeroxed ballots and greater use of electronic voting machines used for visually and other disabled voters.

In addition to some loud applause and drumming from supporters and shouted jeers from critics, there was an unusually long pause in the press conference when a reporter asked Kloppenburg if she still felt she was the winner in the election.

She paused and looked around before finally answering slowly: "I feel that I have been a winner in any number of ways. Whether I will have earned the most votes in the election is something that will be determined by the recount."

Kloppenburg said she made the final decision to seek a recount, after reviewing facts and listening to advice from people including a prominent attorney who represented Al Franken in the U.S. Senate recount in Minnesota. But she was adamant that she was not pushed into a recount by union leaders who made the state high court election a referendum on Gov. Scott Walker's moves to severely curtail the power of most public employee unions. 

"They have not had any evidence to base those claims on," she said. "I am making a decision. This is my decision."

Just minutes before Kloppenburg's press conference, the state Government Accountability Board issued a statement saying it was prepared to move forward with a statewide recount.

"We have been preparing for a recount since Election Night," Kevin  Kennedy said.

"We have assembled an internal team to direct the recount, we have been in close consultation with our county clerk partners, and have arranged for legal representation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice. We anticipate the recount will begin the week of April 25, and plan to hold a teleconference meeting for county clerks on Monday afternoon.”

Kennedy said detailed information about how recounts are conducted in Wisconsin are included in the state's Election Recount Procedures manual, which is available on the G.A.B. website: http://gab.wi.gov/manuals/recount.


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