Raife
1661
And the Republican-controlled Assembly just passed over $300 million in business tax credits.
Raife
1662
Raife
1663
Uhhh, those 17,243 votes were hand-entered. That’s the ticket!
The results for the 2006 attorney general’s race, for example, show 174,047 votes for either Democrat Kathleen Falk, Republican J.B. Van Hollen or write-in candidates, a total that is 17,243 votes higher than the total ballots cast recorded elsewhere in the results.
In her note, Nickolaus said the reference to ballots cast “is the number of ballots that were fed through the election machines at the polling places and the results were collected using a modem in the office” but does not include “any hand entered results.”
It was unclear what Nickolaus meant by “hand entered results,” and she was unavailable for comment Wednesday and Thursday.
The current AG who would normally call for an investigation? This race in 2006 put him in office. He won by a margin of 8,859 votes. The non-partisan Government Accountability Board is investigating, but they have no teeth.
For reference, in 2004, the Presidential election had 231,031 total ballots and the number of total votes recorded for President was 230,363. No 17,000 vote discrepancy, but the voter turnout with those numbers was 97.63%. Check out the top link in my last post.
So what’s the recourse? Can the Federal government bring a claim of some sort for vote fraud, or at least investigate?
Raife
1665
There have been requests from our Congressional Representatives for Eric Holder to investigate, the Justice Department says they are reviewing the matter. Maybe we can get the UN involved, bring in Jimmy Carter.
According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, since the Daily Kos post, Nickolaus has twice posted clarifications regarding the AG vote on her web site. Here, without editorial comment, is her explanation:
"What does Ballot Cast mean in the summary reports?
•Ballot Cast is the number of ballots that were fed through the election machines at the polling places and the results were collected using a modem in the office. It does NOT include any hand entered results.
Number of Votes in a particular contest or race is the number of votes certified after canvassing. The results collected using a modem and any results hand entered in the office on election night.
Why would the ballots cast be higher than the number of people that voted in a specific contest or race?
•The ballots cast are not adjusted when a person doesn’t vote for that contest, a person votes for too many people in that contest, a person sends through a blank ballot, or when a person writes in a statement instead of a name and is not counted as a vote in the scattering section.
Why would the ballots cast be lower than the number of people that voted in a specific contest or race?
•The ballots cast would be lower if a portion of the results were entered by hand.
How can the percentage of turnout be so high?
•Waukesha County is known for higher than State average turnout. In addition the turnout is calculated using the number of registered voters, prior to Election Day. As Wisconsin allows for Election Day registration the turnout number would be skewed dependent on the number of people that registered Election Day.
Yeah. I’m jut waiting for the official call of shenanigans. It looks pretty bad, but there’s a small part of me holding out hope for integrity in the government and that this was truly a case of human error, even though I wanted Kloppenburg to win.
Raife
1668
Hey, Financial Martial Law. Where have I heard that before?
Remember when we chuckled at the Michigan Governor Snyder, who wanted the Michigan legislature to approve his plan to permit him to declare “Financial Martial Law” in cities and other governmental bodies having tough economic times? The law would permit the governor to replace city councils, school boards and other governmental positions. Eminent domain on steroids. I laughed and suggested a bumper sticker in the U.P. of, “Your Governor is worse than ours!”
Well, that was then, now we know another one of Walker’s little secrets. We have discovered that Wisconsin’s governor has the same twisted idea for Wisconsin as Michigan’s governor does of his state. The state would be allowed to take over local governments if financial management standards are not met. Who decides? The governor or a newly elected uber comptroller. (I am not making this up.) The secret plan is being prepared by the state’s largest law firm, Foley & Lardner, for the Greater Milwaukee Committee, the Bradley Foundation, the governor, and key legislators. There is speculation that Alberta Darling is the Walker point person on this nutty scheme, but no need to speculate: call Senator Darling’s office and ask!
Check out this website for their plan for Milwaukee County.
Imagine…
…a Milwaukee County that is the destination for new businesses, young professionals and tourists.
…a vibrant community with world-class parks and culture with dedicated sustainable funding. Imagine people moving effortlessly to work, to play and to learn through our top in class transit system.
…a County in which families facing mental health or other challenges can count on a safe environment meeting the national standards of access, quality, recovery and accountability.
…all of this made possible through a fiscal efficiency that is the envy of municipalities throughout the U.S. Working together, we can make this bold vision for Milwaukee County a reality.
But it will require bold change.
If we don’t make changes today, the future looks grim. Parks will close, bus routes will end and families in distress will not get the help they need. Our Milwaukee will grow smaller and smaller as people and companies leave.
Why? Because, Milwaukee County is facing unprecedented fiscal and structural challenges, including a growing cost of healthcare and pension benefits that is projected to take EVERY DOLLAR of the County’s property tax levy by 2016.
The short-term “solutions” and one-time “fixes” have been exhausted. Without real reform, the County will be forced to eliminate whole areas of service to our community.
The time to act is now
While the County’s fiscal and structural challenges are enormous, so is the opportunity to make our vision for Milwaukee County a reality. We believe the County and State need to work together to achieve real reform.
Sound like something from a Science Fiction movie? Unfortunately, it’s real.
Fiscal stress test systems have been created over the past several decades to assess and monitor the conditions of local government. An example can be seen in Michigan where a set of 9 indicators is used to determine the fiscal health of cities and townships. If one or more conditions indicative of a local government financial problem exist, the State Treasurer conducts a preliminary review. If a serious financial problem exists, the Governor must appoint a review team to report on the situation and if necessary an emergency financial manager steps in.
What’s so shocking about it? The same sort of thing happened to D.C. It was a huge success and marks the turning point for D.C from being the national joke shithole and murder capital of the U.S. to the vastly improved city it is today.
Raife
1670
If you don’t think a Governor being able to dismiss City and County elected officials and installing their own people because of a manufactured “financial crisis” is wrong, then you really do not deserve to be a citizen of the United States of America. The main crisis Milwaukee County has is having had to deal with Scott Walker as County Executive for eight years. Refusing federal stimulus money while cutting services. They just elected Chris Abele as County Executive by 61% of the vote over Jeff Stone, a Republican in the State Assembly. They elected some new progressive County Supervisors. Let them do their job.
ckessel
1671
Malathor just goes to show there are people that very much want to live in a dictatorship, so long as the dictator runs things the way they like.
Just an update on the state supreme court race: The final official vote canvas gives the Republican, Prosser, a 7,316-vote margin. This puts his lead under 0.5% of the votes cast, meaning the Dem, Kloppenburg, can request a recount at the state’s expense. Each side would have to pay for its own legal team however.
First off, that was an act of Congress, not the POTUS simply overriding whatever the D.C. gov’t did. Second, it came after several years of fiscal mismanagement (I largely blame Marion Barry for running D.C. into ruin) when Congress finally got fed up and decided to step in. Third, D.C. has always been under Congress’s direct authority, it’s just sometimes they let D.C. pretend it runs itself. D.C. residents didn’t even get to elect their own mayor & city council until 1973. The city’s basically a political platypus: neither a state nor an independent city in its own right nor has a vote in Congress (hence the vehicle tags).
So while the DCFCB stuck in a lot of people’s craws, for better or for worse it was well within Congress’s authority to step in & take over, AFAIK. What Gov. Walker is supposedly proposing is a significant expansion of the governor’s unilateral authority over local gov’ts which AFAIK is unprecedented in the U.S. (though hopefully someone who’s more of a history buff can weigh in on that).
tl;dr - basically your comparison is shit.
As expected, Kloppenburg, the Democrat, has demanded a recount in the state supreme court race. The recount will be at state expense, although each side will have to pay its own legal expenses. In the Dem’s case, I would guess that the unions will largely pick up that tab, while Prosser’s conservative donors will most likely do likewise for him.
This afternoon, both sides agreed to a hand recount of the ballots in certain districts. The news reports didn’t specify, but it’s a fair guess that Waukesha County will be one of those districts.
Every expert analysis I’ve seen doesn’t give Kloppenburg much of a chance. I don’t think any statewide recount in recent times has swung more than a few hundred votes, nowhere near the 7,300 she needs.
However, from what I’ve read, the recount has a very high chance of illuminating any shenanigans that might have happened; if there were any shenanigans, of course.
I wasn’t sure whether to put this in the Wisconsin thread or the Paul Ryan thread but I went with Wisconsin. Here’s Paul Ryan getting booed at a town meeting in Wisconsin when he tried to peddle his trickle down budget:
Raife
1677
Rep. Paul Ryan gets blasted again:
KENOSHA – Protesters waited for Congressman Paul Ryan outside a listening session at Gateway Technical College in Kenosha, many of them were seniors holding preprinted signs that read ‘Hands Off My Medicare.’
They chanted, “Ryan stop lying!” There was capacity crowd inside the school’s Madrigrana Auditorium. “Do not renew the Bush tax credit for the wealthy,” one man said during the public comment period, even giving out his phone number in front of everyone. “I’ll debate these issues with you anytime, just call me.” At times, the Janesville Republican sounded more like a referee than a lawmaker. “If you’re yelling, I just want to ask you to leave,” Ryan requested.
“I can’t live on $174,000 a year” Rep. Sean Duffy gets blasted again:
Duffy: “When you have your own town hall, you can stand up and give a presentation.”
SamS
1678
JoKlops shouldn’t have elected to recount. 7000+ votes will never be overtaken, and it only gives ammunition to republicans to paint her as a sore loser who costs the taxpayers money when the count is vindicated.
Normally, I would agree. But not with the mess in Waukesha county. I’ve been mostly convinced that it is most likely on the level and just looks bad, but there are a lot of people who are convinced that this was flat out election fraud. Letting that hang there is not a good idea.
Waukesha — The state Supreme Court recount got off to a wobbly start here Wednesday.
After more than a half-hour of meticulous instructions and ground rules relayed by Waukesha County’s chief canvasser, retired Judge Robert G. Mawdsley, questions were raised about the very first bag of ballots to be counted, from the Town of Brookfield.
As canvassers and tabulators compared a numbered seal on a bag with the number recorded for that bag by a town election inspector who prepared the paperwork on election night, the numbers didn’t match.
“What a great way to start,” one official tabulator said.
From the jsonline (I can’t post links yet :()
