Democratic candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg is considering a legal appeal, and has until May 31st to do so. If Kloppenburg does decide to challenge these results, it would presumably be based on the following problems with the conduct of the election in Waukesha County. Outside of the votes from Waukesha County, Ms. Kloppenburg held a slight lead over Prosser, both before and after the recount.
Signficant problems with the conduct of the election, and security of ballots, occurred in Waukesha County. At the annual Wisconsin Women in Government dinner on May 18th, where Kloppenburg introduced the keynote speaker, told WisPolitics.com:
The recount, she said at the annual Wisconsin Women in Government dinner on Tuesday, is a test of our electoral system. “Our elections will be better as a result. People will be more confident that their votes will be properly counted. Clerks will know what to do better than they’ve known before. At a time when we’re having so many elections, it’s really important that our electoral process runs well.”The irregularities in Waukesha were extensive and systemic. Unlike Minnesota's recounts which have been highly praised by experts in election law, the Wisconsin recount was not a hand count, where each ballot was examined and those which presented a clear problem were challenged and subsequently went through a review process. The problems mentioned by Prosser to Wispolitics went beyond open bags of ballots - bags which were kept in the office of the county clerk whose conduct of the election in Waukesha was responsible for the many irregularities while she occupied that office. That clerk has in the past made an immunity deal to testify against five Republicans who were criminally convicted of misconduct. There have been problems with electronic balloting equipment, with ballots filled out in pencil, with undervotes, and with absentee ballots, among other concerns.
Kloppenburg said most of the clerks in the state do a good job. “They have learned a lot from this recount. They have uncovered things that need to be fixed, improvements that need to be made, but people can be confident that, in most parts of Wisconsin, elections are run fairly. Waukesha, however, has been one anomaly and irregularity after another —- bags completely open, seals completely torn apart, numbers written over. There are reasons for all those requirements to preserve votes, and those requirements are not being met in Waukesha.”
It was noted elsewhere that the number of balltos which appeared the day after the election results were announced coincidentally was just barely over the number which required candidate Kloppenburg to pay for the requested recount not a mandated state-paid recount, which some observers found suspicious in the context of the many "irregularities and anomolies" unique to Waukesha county. Presumably the basis for such a legal challenge would rest on those failures to comply with the legal requirements for the conduct of an election in Wisconsin.
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