ALL of the other counties in the state finished by the deadline last week.
I find this surprising, having participated in the recount of far more votes for the 2010 Minnesota Governor's recount, which was a meticulous HAND recount completed for most counties in a matter of a few days. The Minnesota Governor's Race involved far more votes than this State Supreme Court election. The county where I participated in the recount finished in ONE day.
The Wisconsin recount does not require a manual recount, although a percentage of the counties did so. Waukesha is NOT one of those counties, from what I have read. The counties that do NOT perform a manual recount simply re-feed the ballots through the same equipment, which will of course NOT catch any errors, omissions or other irregularities the way a hand recount will. It will simply repeat many of the same errors.
The recount is going to cost Wisconsin residents upwards of an estimated $550,000, according to a Business Insiders Politx article. This will prove particularly interesting if it turns out that there was fraud or other misconduct involved in the election. Also, per BI:
Kloppenburg's campaign has also requested a special investigator in Waukesha County, where 14,000 unreported votes were found two days after the election, giving Prosser his decisive lead.
Kloppenburg's request points out that Prosser was seen attending a private meeting with Walker the night after the election. That same day, Walker made public statements commenting that there might be "ballots somewhere, somehow found out of the blue that weren't counted before."
Typical conservative vote shenanigans. They defraud voters by requiring proof of address and ID's to vote, which will disenfranchise 5% or more of the electorate, in order to "stop" fraud. Yet, they engage in improper denials, perhaps some would say fraudulently claiming fraud far more often than it exists, in order to decrease votes for their opponents.
ReplyDeleteThere are two kinds of fraud, voting too often or improperly reducing votes for your opponent, both are wrong, both are bad, yet one happens FAR more often than the other and it isn't the one where someone votes, but rather it is the systematic, purposeful implementation of plans to deny legal voters their rights.
Is someone who is homeless not allowed to vote? Why should someone who happens to not be able to locate their driver's license not be allowed to vote? What purpose does it provide? In MN we had 50 fraudulent votes, 47 of them were by felons who were unaware of their status of not being allowed to vote. So, in order to prevent THREE!!!!!!! THREE !!!! THREE (darn it)!!! votes, we're going to prevent tens of thousands of legal voters from voting. WHY?!
The answer is because Republicans aren't actually concerned with fraud, just like they aren't concerned with nuns who vote with unwitnessed ballots, but rather, like in Florida where they (perhaps illegally) denied 14 THOUSAND voters from voting in 2000, it is about stealing elections, it is about denying the rights of people who MIGHT or probably vote against you.
And that's ALL it is.. it's about winning, at any cost, by cheating, by lying - by claiming a problem exists when it doesn't, by applying a BIG GOVERNMENT solution to a something which needs no solution, by inventing a solution in search of an ACTUAL problem. It's the worst kind of abuse, it undermines our democracy at it's core by attacking the most important foundation, one person one vote, freely cast, unfettered. It's Jim Crow reinvented, and that's all. It's basely racist, it's ugly and those who support it are as unAmerican as anyone they complain o bitterly about.
And Pen, we don't know if the nuns actually voted, or if this was REPUBILICAN votes attributed to the nuns.
ReplyDeleteSo, while we don't know who those three felons voted for........we DO know that the alleged improper votes in the case of they were for the Republican candidate.
Just wondering something. From what I was seeing on election night the AP reported the democrat won by 200 votes. The next day someplace reported another 7000 votes for the republican. Everyone agreed there was no wrongdoing the votes had been reported to the county and state election officials but had been mistakenly left off the sheet given to the AP. I kinda stopped following the story at that point as at the time even the losing candidate was not asking for a recount. Now reading your piece there was 14000 votes in question. Is this the same place as the 7000? or someplace else? And what happened to the original story of the votes being left off the press release but not the state commission total. And before DG says well you shouldn't watch FOX I saw this on FOX, MSN, and CNN and they all told the same story the day after the election.
ReplyDeleteTuck, supposedly the county clerk found 14,000+ votes, and claimded that they put the Republican candidate ahead by 7,000.
ReplyDeleteGiven Republican math there are a lot of questions; not the least of which is that NO, there appears to be quite a lot more to the story than simply misinforming the AP.
Tuck, I want to know how it is that in Wisconsin, for a much smaller election, it can take this damn much time for a recount than the governor's race in MN?
ReplyDeleteWe did a manual, hand recount in Minnesota. EVERY ballot was examined by at least two people, in most cases three, and scrutinized. Challenges were discussed, and those ballots were copied, with copies provided to the Sec State (along with the original), a copy to the county where the vote was cast, and a copy to both candidates organizations.
Additional paperwork was filled out for all this. In the biggest counties, it was videoed. The press was present.
And we STILL completed the recount - HIGHLY praised in election law circles for transparency and accountability and integrity - in a fraction of the time this is taking. AND, some of the counties, including the one in biggest question, ARE NOT doing a similar, scrutinized hand count. They're just pushing questionable ballots back through the same machines without any examination apparently.
So 1. Why should this be trusted any more than the first time around, given the history of the people who could have tampered with ballots; and 2. what about ballots like the nuns vote (+ 1); and 3. WHY, given the controversy and the expense and the investigation anyway, didn't every county do a hand count where candidates could have people watching and questioning?
I don't see, given some of the questions raised, why those counties NOT doing hand recounts, shouldn't have their recounts challenged further.
This stinks like old rotting dead fish.
I still don't get why people are so against requiring a valid id to vote. No one complains about requiring a valid id to drive, buy beer or cigarettes, or cash a check. The law says you have to be a citizen and live in the district you are voting in, what is wrong with requiring proof? In Texas you show id to register and when you vote you show your voter id card or your Texas id (drivers license or just id issued by DPS). If you don't drive and cannot afford the $10 fee for an id they will give you one for free.
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