One day after Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg declared victory in the state Supreme Court race with a .01 percent lead, new results from Waukesha County gave Justice David Prosser over 7,000 more votes than his opponent and a commanding lead in a race that has become one of the closest in state history.
In a press conference Thursday afternoon, Waukesha Country Clerk Kathy Nickolaus blamed the discrepancy on the failure to include the city of Brookfield's vote totals.
Nickolaus took responsibility herself, and stressed the fact the problem in vote calculation was due solely to human error, trying to downplay the rumors of partisan interference in this canvass.
""I'm thankful that this error was caught early in the process and during the canvass."" Nickolaus said. ""The purpose of the canvass is to catch these kinds of errors.""
After such a huge swing in Prosser's favor, liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now was quick to point out Nickolaus is a former staffer for the Republican Assembly Caucus who was granted immunity in the investigation into allegations of illegal campaign activities on state time.
""There is a history of secrecy and partisanship surrounding the Waukesha County Clerk and there remain unanswered questions,"" OWN Executive Director Scott Ross said.
Nickolaus stressed the changes and verifications of vote totals occurred in an open, transparent meeting involving members of both political parties.
Ramona Kitzinger, the Democratic member of the county board canvass, defended Nickolaus and the process behind catching the Brookfield error.
""The board went over everything and made sure that all the numbers jived up, which they did,"" Kitzinger said.
There were also two other changes found in municipal vote totals in Waukesha County. In New Berlin, the initial total in one ward for Prosser was reported as 37 instead of the actual 237, and in Lisbon both candidates had lower vote totals after the canvass.
This announcement came after a chaotic afternoon of unofficial lead changes as different counties reported changes in their reported vote totals. Kloppenburg gained net votes in Shawano, Vernon, Rusk, Iowa, Door, Portage and Grant counties as various clerk's offices reported new returns, but all gains were relatively small in comparison to Waukesha County's swing for Prosser.
