FORD
04-07-2011, 10:51 PM
http://www.bradblog.com/Images/KathyNickolaus_WaukeshaCountyWI.jpg
BREAKING: Prosser Up by 7000+ in WI Supreme Court Race After 'Bookkeeping Error' Discovered by Controversial Clerk in Republican Waukesha County
County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, a GOP activists, previously criticized for storing election results only on a personal computer in her office...
As word was floating around this afternoon about a possible "book keeping error" discovered during canvassing of Tuesday's incredibly close Wisconsin Supreme Court election, an error that might give thousands of votes to Justice David Prosser, we idly wondered if the county in question might turn out to be the very controversial Kathy Nickolaus' Waukesha county. And, whaddaya know...
BREAKING: Computer Error Could Give Prosser 7,381 More Votes, Victory
April 7, 2011 5:29 P.M. By Christian Schneider
After Tuesday night's Wisconsin Supreme Court election, a computer error in heavily Republican Waukesha County failed to send election results for the entire City of Brookfield to the Associated Press. The error, revealed today, would give incumbent Supreme Court Justice David Prosser a net 7,381 votes against his challenger, attorney Joanne Kloppenburg. On Wednesday, Kloppenburg declared victory after the AP reported she finished the election with a 204-vote lead, out of nearly 1.5 million votes cast.
On election night, AP results showed a turnout of 110,000 voters in Waukesha County - well short of the 180,000 voters that turned out last November, and 42 percent of the county's total turnout. By comparison, nearly 90 percent of Dane County voters who cast a ballot in November turned out to vote for Kloppenburg.
Prior to the election, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus was heavily criticized for her decision to keep the county results on an antiquated personal computer, rather than upgrade to a new data system being utilized statewide. Nickolaus cited security concerns for keeping the data herself - yet when she reported the data, it did not include the City of Brookfield, whose residents cast nearly 14,000 votes.
Throughout the day Thursday, official canvass numbers flipped the lead back and forth between Prosser and Kloppenburg. While many believed a recount was inevitable, the addition of the Brookfield votes for Prosser could push the justice's lead beyond the legal threshold that would trigger an automatic recount. Under state law, Kloppenburg could still ask for a recount up to three days after the official canvass, but would have to pay for it herself.
The above comes from the Rightwing National Review Online and is similarly reported at this hour at the similarly Rightwing Weekly Standard where Stephen F. Hayes adds that Nickolaus is also "a Republican activist":
The discovery of the extra votes is sure to stoke the embers of the heated battles that have taken place across the state over the past two months, particularly because Nickolaus, the woman at the center of the controversy, is a Republican activist. A posting on the website of the Republican Women of Waukesha County indicates that Kathy Nickolaus recently served as president of that group.
As Schneider notes in the NRO piece, Waukesha's County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus had indeed come under scrutiny for her election procedures in the past. As The BRAD BLOG flagged back in August of 2010, it was discovered that Nickolaus keeps election results on her personal PC in her office, and only on her personal PC.
At a press conference moments ago, Nickolaus attributed the confusion in numbers to an error in Microsoft Access on her computer.
As we noted, quoting the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last year in regard to questions about Nickolaus', um, unusual election procedures:
Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus' decision to go it alone in how she collects and maintains election results has some county officials raising a red flag about the integrity of the system.
Nickolaus said she decided to take the election data collection and storage system off the county's computer network - and keep it on stand-alone personal computers accessible only in her office - for security reasons.
"What it gave me was good security of the elections from start to finish, without the ability of someone unauthorized to be involved," she said.
An audit of Nickolaus' election procedures was subsequently performed by the county of Nickolaus' election procedures and a number of recommendations to improve her system were made, including the recommendation that she stop using the same ID and password for three different employees in her office. Nickolaus claimed, in opposing that recommendation, that it would take too much time for one employee to log off before another one logged on.
When presented with the results of the audit at a County Board meeting, Nickolaus said only she would take the recommendations "into consideration" and was then taken to task for what one member of the Executive Committee described as her "smirks" during the discussion, as reported by the Journal Sentinel in January of this year...
Several committee members said they were uncomfortable with Nickolaus' refusal to adopt the recommendations.
During one part of the discussion, Dwyer erupted in exasperation at Nickolaus' facial expressions.
"There really is nothing funny about this, Kathy," he said, raising his voice. "Don't sit there and grin when I'm explaining what this is about.
"Don't sit there and say I will take it into consideration," he said, asking her pointedly whether she would change the passwords.
"I have not made my decision," she answered. After supervisors continued to press the issue, Nickolaus indicated she would create three different passwords.
"This isn't that big of a deal. It isn't worth an argument," she said. "This is ridiculous."
Nickolaus also said she would make her own assessment of when to back up computer programming for election ballots - and store the more frequent backup in another building, as the auditor recommended.
We explained, in our August 2010 report, how insane it is to allow such a situation to exist where one insider official has that much control over results with no oversight whatsoever by the public...
Hopefully, the citizens and county administrators in Waukesha County, Wisconsin (adjacent to Milwaukee) will realize how completely insane it is to allow one person, County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus (R), to have complete, unfettered, un-observable, un-overseeable control of such public information, and are willing to do something about it.
For the record, for just one tiny reason why election officials are not to simply be "trusted" (as the very best ones will tell you), here's the story of former Monterey County (CA) Clerk Tony Anchundo. And, if that's not enough, feel free to peruse the story of Clay County (KY) Clerk Freddy Thompson. Just let us know if you need more.
What part of 'public official' and 'public elections' to these sorts of folks not get???
The Supreme Court election in Wisconsin, as we reported when covering results and explaining how votes are cast and counted in the Badger State yesterday (and the concerns related the optical-scan and touch-screen systems used in the state as made by companies such as Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia), has become a proxy battle between supporters of Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his opponents in the public who have protested for weeks against the GOP state legislature's attempt to strip unions of many of their collective bargaining rights.
A victory by Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenberg would change the balance of the state's high court where Republicans currently have a 4 to 3 majority with Prosser as a close ally of Walker's.
We will, as you might imagine, be discussing this this evening on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show which I am again guest hosting all this week from 9p-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT).
Link (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8456)
BREAKING: Prosser Up by 7000+ in WI Supreme Court Race After 'Bookkeeping Error' Discovered by Controversial Clerk in Republican Waukesha County
County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus, a GOP activists, previously criticized for storing election results only on a personal computer in her office...
As word was floating around this afternoon about a possible "book keeping error" discovered during canvassing of Tuesday's incredibly close Wisconsin Supreme Court election, an error that might give thousands of votes to Justice David Prosser, we idly wondered if the county in question might turn out to be the very controversial Kathy Nickolaus' Waukesha county. And, whaddaya know...
BREAKING: Computer Error Could Give Prosser 7,381 More Votes, Victory
April 7, 2011 5:29 P.M. By Christian Schneider
After Tuesday night's Wisconsin Supreme Court election, a computer error in heavily Republican Waukesha County failed to send election results for the entire City of Brookfield to the Associated Press. The error, revealed today, would give incumbent Supreme Court Justice David Prosser a net 7,381 votes against his challenger, attorney Joanne Kloppenburg. On Wednesday, Kloppenburg declared victory after the AP reported she finished the election with a 204-vote lead, out of nearly 1.5 million votes cast.
On election night, AP results showed a turnout of 110,000 voters in Waukesha County - well short of the 180,000 voters that turned out last November, and 42 percent of the county's total turnout. By comparison, nearly 90 percent of Dane County voters who cast a ballot in November turned out to vote for Kloppenburg.
Prior to the election, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus was heavily criticized for her decision to keep the county results on an antiquated personal computer, rather than upgrade to a new data system being utilized statewide. Nickolaus cited security concerns for keeping the data herself - yet when she reported the data, it did not include the City of Brookfield, whose residents cast nearly 14,000 votes.
Throughout the day Thursday, official canvass numbers flipped the lead back and forth between Prosser and Kloppenburg. While many believed a recount was inevitable, the addition of the Brookfield votes for Prosser could push the justice's lead beyond the legal threshold that would trigger an automatic recount. Under state law, Kloppenburg could still ask for a recount up to three days after the official canvass, but would have to pay for it herself.
The above comes from the Rightwing National Review Online and is similarly reported at this hour at the similarly Rightwing Weekly Standard where Stephen F. Hayes adds that Nickolaus is also "a Republican activist":
The discovery of the extra votes is sure to stoke the embers of the heated battles that have taken place across the state over the past two months, particularly because Nickolaus, the woman at the center of the controversy, is a Republican activist. A posting on the website of the Republican Women of Waukesha County indicates that Kathy Nickolaus recently served as president of that group.
As Schneider notes in the NRO piece, Waukesha's County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus had indeed come under scrutiny for her election procedures in the past. As The BRAD BLOG flagged back in August of 2010, it was discovered that Nickolaus keeps election results on her personal PC in her office, and only on her personal PC.
At a press conference moments ago, Nickolaus attributed the confusion in numbers to an error in Microsoft Access on her computer.
As we noted, quoting the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last year in regard to questions about Nickolaus', um, unusual election procedures:
Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus' decision to go it alone in how she collects and maintains election results has some county officials raising a red flag about the integrity of the system.
Nickolaus said she decided to take the election data collection and storage system off the county's computer network - and keep it on stand-alone personal computers accessible only in her office - for security reasons.
"What it gave me was good security of the elections from start to finish, without the ability of someone unauthorized to be involved," she said.
An audit of Nickolaus' election procedures was subsequently performed by the county of Nickolaus' election procedures and a number of recommendations to improve her system were made, including the recommendation that she stop using the same ID and password for three different employees in her office. Nickolaus claimed, in opposing that recommendation, that it would take too much time for one employee to log off before another one logged on.
When presented with the results of the audit at a County Board meeting, Nickolaus said only she would take the recommendations "into consideration" and was then taken to task for what one member of the Executive Committee described as her "smirks" during the discussion, as reported by the Journal Sentinel in January of this year...
Several committee members said they were uncomfortable with Nickolaus' refusal to adopt the recommendations.
During one part of the discussion, Dwyer erupted in exasperation at Nickolaus' facial expressions.
"There really is nothing funny about this, Kathy," he said, raising his voice. "Don't sit there and grin when I'm explaining what this is about.
"Don't sit there and say I will take it into consideration," he said, asking her pointedly whether she would change the passwords.
"I have not made my decision," she answered. After supervisors continued to press the issue, Nickolaus indicated she would create three different passwords.
"This isn't that big of a deal. It isn't worth an argument," she said. "This is ridiculous."
Nickolaus also said she would make her own assessment of when to back up computer programming for election ballots - and store the more frequent backup in another building, as the auditor recommended.
We explained, in our August 2010 report, how insane it is to allow such a situation to exist where one insider official has that much control over results with no oversight whatsoever by the public...
Hopefully, the citizens and county administrators in Waukesha County, Wisconsin (adjacent to Milwaukee) will realize how completely insane it is to allow one person, County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus (R), to have complete, unfettered, un-observable, un-overseeable control of such public information, and are willing to do something about it.
For the record, for just one tiny reason why election officials are not to simply be "trusted" (as the very best ones will tell you), here's the story of former Monterey County (CA) Clerk Tony Anchundo. And, if that's not enough, feel free to peruse the story of Clay County (KY) Clerk Freddy Thompson. Just let us know if you need more.
What part of 'public official' and 'public elections' to these sorts of folks not get???
The Supreme Court election in Wisconsin, as we reported when covering results and explaining how votes are cast and counted in the Badger State yesterday (and the concerns related the optical-scan and touch-screen systems used in the state as made by companies such as Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia), has become a proxy battle between supporters of Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his opponents in the public who have protested for weeks against the GOP state legislature's attempt to strip unions of many of their collective bargaining rights.
A victory by Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenberg would change the balance of the state's high court where Republicans currently have a 4 to 3 majority with Prosser as a close ally of Walker's.
We will, as you might imagine, be discussing this this evening on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show which I am again guest hosting all this week from 9p-Midnight ET (6p-9p PT).
Link (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8456)