UPDATE: Prosser Picks Up 6 Votes on First Day in Waukesha County

By the end of day one of the state Supreme Court recount, the Waukesha County Board of Canvassers came close to finishing just one of the county's three dozen municipalities, with Justice David Prosser picking up six votes over JoAnne Kloppenburg.

The state Government Accountability Board is posting daily recount tallies from the 72 counties here. 

The recount kicked off Wednesday with the 's votes and retired Waukesha County Circuit Judge Robert Mawdsley presiding over the process after Waukesha County Clerk  recused herself.

Nickolaus was on hand for the recount but said she would not participate with the other two Board of Canvass members Ramona Kitzinger, the Democratic Party representative, and Pat Karcher, former Waukesha County treasurer.

"I believe that there are those who, through innuendo or erroneous facts, would imply that the election in Waukesha County was not fairly run and I believe this is wrong," Nickolaus wrote in a letter Monday to Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas. 

"But I do believe that the citizens of Waukesha County would be best served and there would be a total avoidance of any appearance of impropriety or conflict if an independent third party were appointed by you to run the Board of Canvassers for a recount," she said.

Vrakas appointed Mawdsley, who stuck to the state's strict rules overseeing the process, including banning anyone from bringing purses, bags or black and blue pens or pencils. Only pens of another color ink were allowed inside the room.

Six representatives each from the Prosser and Kloppenburg campaigns were monitoring the recount. Prosser's campaign also hired a court reporter to record the proceedings for any future court ligitation, as did Waukesha County.

The county also hired Barb Hansen, former deputy for the state Government Accountability Board and a 21-year employee of the state Elections Board to assist Mawdsley.

Mawdsley said the county's certified tally prior to the recount was 125,070 total votes cast in state Supreme Court race, with Prosser earning 92,263 votes and Kloppenburg, 32,758.

The morning started with an error.

Someone at the Town of Brookfield wrote the wrong number to identify a ballot bag, writing a "2" instead of a "3," but both campaigns agreed not challenge the error and said the bag could be opened and ballots counted.

Later, there was a one-ballot discrepancy between original absentee ballots and "remade" absentee ballots. When voting machines reject a ballot, election inspectors fill out a new ballot marking the original votes. 

The process was tedious, with the recount of the town's first three voting wards not being completed in the approximately two hours and 15 minutes before a lunch break.

Tabulators were reconciling the number of voters on polling lists, hand counting ballots and piling them in stacks of 25 for each candidate to total and verifying the validity of absentee ballots.

The end of the day resulted in Prosser's vote tally from the Town of Brookfield Wards 1-4, 6 and 8 increasing by five from 962 to 967 and Kloppenburg's total decreasing by one from 367 to 366. The town's Wards 5, 7, 9 and 10 were yet to be finalized.

Next up will be the Town of Delafield, as the county works through the county's three dozen towns, villages and cities. Clerks statewide have said it could cost more than $575,000 to conduct the recount requested by Kloppenburg at taxpayer expense because the final margin was less than one-half of one percent.

Waukesha County is livestreaming its recount here.