As discussed yesterday, the strategy was to contest whether ballot bags were properly sealed, the implication being that Prosser forces stuffed the ballot bags. In so doing, Kloppenburg hoped with one fell swoop to disenfranchise an entire city in the hope that speculation and conjecture about the possibility of ballot stuffing would keep her hopes alive.
Last night Brookfield completed its recount, and the recount numbers were off by only 4 votes compared to the canvass numbers (and the numbers reported by Brookfield on election night). Via JSOnline:
The recount of the state Supreme Court votes for the City of Brookfield was completed Saturday night, officials said.The city of Brookfield has fallen again to Prosser forces. The vote count, being off by only 4 votes, puts to rest any straight-faced claim of ballot stuffing or other irregularities.
The results were four votes off compared to the final canvass, which included a total of 14,315 votes. The official canvass for the city were: Prosser, 10,859; Kloppenburg, 3,456. The numbers from the recount are: Prosser, 10,862; Kloppenburg, 3,457.
Kloppenburg forces have retreated to mount a last ditch defense at the Cities of Speculation and Conjecture. Because that's all Kloppenburg has left.
Update: The Prosser campaign has released a statement (via @SykesCharlie) which concludes:
Kloppenburg asked for a recount because she said it was important to have confidence in the electoral process. What the recount process has shown is that the election process in Wisconsin, for all of the potential for human error, is extremely accurate.
And the advantage of stopping the recount now, is that we can go back to making jokes about elections in Illinois.-------------------------------------------
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It's time the Wisconsin legislature sent the Democrat Party a bill for the entire cost of this desperate attempt to overturn an election.
ReplyDelete1. And, Insufficiently Sensitive, it's time that Wisconsin Democrats stopped frightening off businesses that are planning to leave Illinois.
ReplyDelete2. Bill, thank you for your sustained coverage of this significant race. It's all too easy to lose track of stories which one had intended to follow to their conclusion. We've gone from thirsting for information to drowning in it.
"Love means never having to say you're sorry." In this case perpetual, diabolical accusation means never having to face up to consequences, liability, cost and repercussions. It is enshrined in statute law, case law, academia, policy statements and of course our condescening yet compassionate media. Well said Insuffienctly Sensitive, whose moniker I admire.
ReplyDeleteanother thought.. that ballot box was obviously stuffed on election day and before the results were noted..either way we all lose?
ReplyDelete@Dave,
ReplyDeleteOver time there have been rather consistent voting patterns in the City of Brookfield, and Waukesha County, ones that match quite convincingly with the vote in this race. There is no reason at all to suspect there may have been any ballot stuffing whatsoever. For example, the Journal Sentinel reported that the county drop-off rate compared to last year's turnout for the gubernatorial vote in heavily Republican counties, was quite consistent with statewide numbers, but only once the corrected Brookfield numbers were included. Also, those numerical results were reported on election night to Huffington Post & AOL . . . just not to AP. It was a mistake, not a conspiracy.
Brookfield, a City of just over 39,000 residents, is a stable and very strongly Republican community. Just under ¾ of all households in the city contain married couples living together. Over 80% of all households are family households. Brookfield is the primary commercial suburb of Milwaukee, and many of these folks are manufacturers, professionals, or retail trade business owners. Home values have remained relatively stable during the recession. The median household and family incomes in Brookfield are comparatively high, as is the per capita income. The unemployment rate there is comparatively low, as is the crime rate across the board. Also, a very low percentage of people living in Brookfield are living on incomes that are below the poverty line.
Fully 2/3 of the residents are affiliated with a religious congregation, and over half of those in Brookfield are Roman Catholic.
Brookfield residents are also well educated folks, with half of its residents holding a bachelor’s degree or higher – about double the statewide average for the State of Wisconsin.
Though it is 10 miles west of Milwaukee and technically a part of the greater Milwaukee metropolitan area, the City of Brookfield it is not dominated by Milwaukee politics, for one reason because it is located in the separate County of Waukesha, a strongly Republican county.
Brookfield consists of suburban and exurban areas to the west of the older urban center of Milwaukee. Even in the Presidential Election of 2008 in Wisconsin in which Barack Obama got a little over 56% of the vote statewide, nevertheless 63% of the voters in Waukesha County pulled the lever for John McCain. The percentage of those voting for a more conservative George Bush in 2004 in Waukesha County, was even higher.