Democrats Charge Voter Fraud in Wisconsin

The latest turn of events in the seesaw election battle between Justice David Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg over a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat has Justice Prosser surging back into the lead.  Earlier, Kathy Nickolaus, the Republican Waukesha County Clerk had failed to include the town of Brookfield in the unofficial totals she released after Tuesday's election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.  This had Kloppenburg in the lead at the end of the unofficial counting.  In the official canvassing that followed the discrepancy was discovered.  Democrats cried foul.

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca (D-Kenosha) raised the possibility of an independent investigation over the recovery of the votes.

"This is a serious breach of election procedure," he said. "We're going to look further. She waited 24 hours to work this. And she waited until after she verified the results, making it that much more difficult to challenge and verify the results."

'We went over everything'

But at the news conference with Nickolaus, Ramona Kitzinger, the Democrat on the Waukesha County Board of Canvassers, said: "We went over everything and made sure all the numbers jibed up and they did. Those numbers jibed up, and we're satisfied they're correct."

As a Democrat, she said, "I'm not going to stand here and tell you something that's not true."

Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas, who sat in on Nickolaus' news conference, said voters can be confident in the results because "all the votes are in that office. If anyone wants to look at them and verify, they can."

The latest revised vote totals put the incumbent Republican far enough ahead of Democratic challenger that an automatic recount may not be triggered.

The election is significant because of a pair of decisions by Democratic Judge Maryann Sumi who ruled that a law stripping Wisconsin public employee unions of some of their bargaining powers was not properly passed by the Wisconsin legislature.  The issue is destined for the Wisconsin Supreme Court which currently has a 4-3 Republican majority.  If Democrat JoAnne Kloppenburg wins the court swings to a 4-3 Democratic majority.

It has been a contentious issue that first came to national attention when Wisconsin's minority Democrats fled the state rather than vote on an earlier version of the aforementioned bill.  Governor Scott Walker included the curtailment of union entitlements as part of a effort to close a $3-plus billion state budget deficit.  By fleeing the state, Democrats prevented a vote by preventing the assembly of the three-fifths quorum required by Wisconsin law for the passage of fiscal bills.

The Wisconsin legislature, in turn, passed the union related provisions separately.  Since they were unattached to a fiscal bill the three-fifths quorum, and the missing Democrats, were not needed for passage.  Governor Scott Walker signed the bill into law.

In rode Judge Sumi to the rescue.  She ruled that Wisconsin's open meeting law was violated because insufficient public notice was provided.  Her remedy was to rule the new law is not and cannot be in effect.  Legal minds will ponder the validity of that ruling at the next stop which is the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Prior to Judge Sumi's rulings Kloppenburg's chances for victory stood somewhere between slim and none.   In a February four way primary Prosser garnered 55-percent of the vote to Kloppenburg's 25-percent.  Not even close.

Incumbent David Prosser and Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg have advanced to the April election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Prosser, a justice for 12 years, received 55-percent of the vote in Tuesday’s primary. Kloppenburg had 25-percent. Marla Stephens, head of the public defender’s appellate division, was eliminated with 11-percent of the vote. Madison attorney Joel Winnig placed fourth with nine-percent. Just over 400-thousand total votes were cast in a primary that was expected to get a 10-percent statewide turnout.

Once Judge Sumi ruled union money poured into the Kloppenburg campaign.  Union money for Kloppenburg was countered by Republican and Tea Party money for the Prosser campaign.  For both sides a considerable share came from outside Wisconsin, but the decision was ultimately made by Wisconsin voters.  The election day voter turnout of 1.4 million where the primary turnout was around 400,000.

The outcome will reverberate as federal and state governments try to reign in out of control budgets.  Unions provide impetus for government spending by the pressure they bring to bear in favor of higher wages and benefits for public employees, as well as pressure to expand government payrolls and thus union membership.  

A key provision, maybe the key provision, in the new Wisconsin law is elimination of mandatory union dues which are automatically collected from employee paychecks.  Union dues are largely put to work on political initiatives almost exclusively on behalf of the Democratic party.  With the legally mandated levy and collection of union dues, what you have in effect is the weight of government brought to bear on behalf of a political party -- the Democrats.  It's no wonder they're fighting so hard.

Comments

[Jane]

I heard you on the radio this morning, and I agree with you 100% on the winners and losers in the budget battle. I missed your take on Wisconsin so I'm happy to see it hear.

Nice job BTW. I gotta get you on my show!

[Tom Bowler]

Thanks, Jane. I'd love to be on your show. I just need to arrange the time well enough in advance.

I had a good time on Pete's show this morning. A point I made on Wisconsin that I didn't make here: It's a disaster for the Dems. They thanked Governor Walker for energizing their base, and their base didn't get it done. 2012 is likely to be another Dem bloodbath. A 2010 deja vu all over again.

Do you think you would like to join us some Saturday morning?

[Jane]

I'd love to join you. I was interested in the disparity of reactions on the budget battle. Politically it changed the discourse in this country and I just don;t see how you can count that as a loss.

[Tom Bowler]

I'll see if Pete can have us both on one of these Saturdays. I think we'll have a lot of fun.

Regarding the various reactions to the budget deal, the people who are upset about it are the purists. For them, any compromise is defeat. Now I am definitely in favor of cutting off NPR and the rest of them, but forcing a government shutdown to get it done would have been way too costly. And we're going to get another crack at them.

I like Boehner. I think he's going to be the most effective Speaker since Gingrich. More effective probably. I could be wrong, but I think the Dems are going to have a very hard time making him out to be the arch-villain the way they did with Gingrich and Delay. It will take a massive smear campaign, and I'm not sure the Dems have enough credibility to pull that off any more.

[Jane]

WEll I'm a purist, but I am also a realist. Since this is a battle I really really really want to win I cannot sit back and wait for purity.

I too like Boehner. And it sounds like he is a pretty good negotiator. The thought of Obama as a mediator cracks me up, and I bet Boehner will take excellent advantage of that.

AS it stands now, as long as we are okay with planned parenthood, the left will concede to anything. I like it!

[Tom Bowler]

I forget who wrote it, but somebody pointed out that Obama was actually the extremist, willing to shut down the government rather than pull funding for Planned Parenthood, an abortion provider. But of course no liberal journalist worth his salt would ever print such a thing, so nobody is going to notice.

However, I think maybe Boehner is onto something. And we are his enablers! I think he'll just keep coming with proposals to axe little things near and dear to progressive hearts, like NPR or Planned Parenthood. As long as we Tea Partiers are egging him on we lend credibility that he might actually do what he says. Terrified Dems will bluster and complain then cave in on things that are really important. Hope so anyway.