Posted in News, Those Kooky Conservatives!, Wisconsin Politics

Two interesting factoids about the “found” votes in Waukesha County

   April 8, 2011

Interesting Factoid #1:

The number of votes for Justice David Prosser that Republican Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus found two days after election day puts a taxpayer-funded recall just out of reach for Prosser’s opponent, Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg.

Interesting Factoid #2:

While working as a staffer for the Assembly Republican Caucus, Nickolaus’ boss was none other than then-Assembly Speaker David Prosser.

Share:

Related Articles

105 thoughts on “Two interesting factoids about the “found” votes in Waukesha County”

  2. I am usually not into conspiracy theories, but this is becoming more and more realistic.

    Plus, the theory about Dane County can be tossed right back a conservatives with this.

    125,000+ votes were cast for Supreme Court in Waukesha County. The next most voted for race had a total of about 106,800 votes. That leaves just over 18,000 votes for only the Supreme Court race. 18,000/125,000 = 14.4%

    Republicans were complaining about fraud in Dane County on election night because there were some 10,000 ballots cast for only the Supreme Court race. However, there were a total of 182,000 votes cast in Dane County. 10,000/182,000 = 5.5% If you took the number down to 5%, there would have only been 6000 such votes in Waukesha County. That means a loss of approximately 12,000 votes, pretty close to the number of votes that were added for Brookfield today.

        1. Errr, math is wrong! It is 9.1% – However the numbers!

          55,175/60,628 = 9.1% rounded up. Does not look nearly as fishy. I trust Brown County’s statistics. If we went with 57,899/60,628 that would be the 5.5%.

  3. I find this hilarious. I guess its too bad that as a state employee it will take an act of god to fire her since she still maintains her collective bargaining rights. And its a good thing state employees have collective bargaining or else they might actually be able to fire someone for doing their job poorly.

    1. Fun fact: Public employees can be fired for no doing heir jobs. Shocking, I know. I’s he same reason why a person who works a private company doesn’t do shit yet she doesn’t get fired.

      0/10 rating in your comment. Try harder.

  4. Also her story dealing with technology doesn’t add up whether it be Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access. Excel asks you to save when you make changes and are ready to close it. Access automatically does under all circumstances, even with a Hard Shutdown.

    1. It sounds like they put raw counts into an Excel spreadsheet, then run a macro to import them into Access. Without seeing the code, you can’t predict how it behaves or whether it reports errors.

  8. I have a theory. She was almost prosecuted for shenanigans if not for turning states evidence and rolling over on her republican bosses. So how the heck did she end up working for the republicans again? I know I wouldn’t bring her back into the foll.

    So she somehow gets back into the good graces of the republican party? Wouldn’t she feel obligated to find some votes if asked to do so? This really doesn’t smell right to me. Too much shadiness is going on in Wisconsin now.

    Bottom line is this. If there is no State Funded Recount then the election was stolen. And it should be a State Funded Recount because the State screwed up.

    1. You’d think some sort of examination is in order if she was indeed relying on spreadsheet templates and/or a system developed by the GAB, as she seemed to say in the press conference.

      2. Nevermind, found it. However, if the Koch’s can buy Walker they can buy the Government Accountabilty Board of Wisconsin.

        1. My money would be on George Soros who controls the DNC would be more likely to buy out the GAB……man I love to play tinfoil conspiracy like this. Keep up the good work Sam!

        2. Who is GAB anyways? Wouldn’t surprise me if its owned by the Koch Brothers.

          Wow, that’s rather stunning. Just a hint – if you don’t actually know what/who the GAB is, you’re better off keeping your mouth shut & doing a little reading. Seriously.

          FYI, the GAB is the new “governing body” responsible for oversight, replacing the state elections board & state ethics board a few years ago. They are appointed, not elected – and they went into effect during Doyle’s time, so all current board members were appointed by Jim Doyle.

          Nice try though, but I’d suggest maybe doing a little reading. And there’s probably some meds than can help with the derangement syndrome you seem to have for the Kochs.

          1. Come on Charles or is it David? Even you can smell the scent of shenanigans in all this. 14 thousand votes? In an election hotly contested? Come on man!

            1. To a point, I get the “the rich are trying to control everything” stuff. To some degree it’s often even true. But it crosses over into derangement territory to claim the GAB is owned by the Kochs.

                1. OK fair enough. And given that Zach is trying to cleanup some of the questionable language around here and I myself have been highly critical of the use of “teabaggers” I shouldn’t have put it that way. I apologize – though the X_derangement syndrome has become a meme of it’s own, I’ll try to stay away from that sort of rhetoric.

            2. Welcome to politics. Seems a lot of Tea Party folks have the same syndrome I have. They insist that our President is a Muslim Terrorist implanted in America to enslave the masses.

              I ask who exactly are the deranged syndrome people in America?

  9. Here is another thing that bugs me. Apparently, the only computer with this information on it is her own personal computer. So when was the canvassing actually done? Before or after she corrected the numbers? Because the democrat could have been canvassing what Nickolous already corrected.

    I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something like the mysterious fire that happened in Texas in which all the voting machines burned to the ground. If malfeasance did take place then another shoe must drop to cover up the first shoe. I will be expecting that in the near future.

  10. This is so much fun 24 hours ago the unions were all pumped and in the face of the middle class voters of Wisconsin, today it’s now meltdown day……what a great day for the taxpayers in Wisconsin!

    1. Get a clue. Union members = middle-class = taxpayers too, so drop the self-righteous crap.

      For the record, it appears that approximately 50% of taxpayers in the state disagree with you. Except I forgot, the people you disagree with don’t count in your personal universe. My bad. Carry on.

  11. Even putting aside any allegations of malice, this was a f#@k up of nuclear proportions.

    Nickolaus designed and personally, directly controlled almost every aspect of the system she was using. What else did she screw up?

  12. Oh boy! Seems odd to me the election was dead even before the lost (found) votes magically appeared. But what doesn’t make sense is the split. The found (lost) votes were 76% Prosser and 24% Kloppenburg. It was 50/50 State wide but 76/24 in Brookfield?

    What’s that, 4 to 1?

    It would be interesting to see another conservative city’s breakdown. I mean more conservative than Brookfield supposedly. If it looks like the above then it might just be stupidity. Somehow, I’m thinking it won’t look like that split.

  13. One last thing. Like many I was watching the returns. I never saw more than a 2000 vote swing. Now, if Nickolaus did everything right then I should have saw a 7000 vote swing at some point. This leads me to believe Brookfield is some kind of anomaly.

    Maybe I missed it but I just don’t remember any more than a 2000 or so vote swing. Which means the other cities were a lot closer to 50/50 than 76/24.

    1. This is because Nickolaus ditched the traditional method of reporting by precinct for updates of the subtotal. Ironically, the librul media probably would have saved her butt Tuesday night without that change.

      1. A right leaning city like Brookfield should have a counterpart left leaning city. In other words, shouldn’t I see a similar 76/24 split in favor of Kloppenburg from a deep blue city?

        I guess what I’m getting at is a 4-1 split from Brookfield, in an election that was originally separated by 204 votes, seems rather odd to me.

          1. So you know Madison was split 3-1? When will those records be available to the non cheaters?

            1. You do know how to use google correct?

              http://gab.wi.gov/April5SupremeCourt

              I even did the work for you. Adding up the votes for the City of Madison, you get 75883 votes for Kloppenburg and 17163 for Prosser. That there is actually a 4-1 split in a city with 6.5 times the population than Brookfield.

              Has this calmed down your bellyaching?

            2. Sam, please stop forcing me to side with the righties. It makes me feel dirty! Many towns see such partisan splits. As squid points out, Madison is one, Milwaukee and Surperior are others on the blue side. Many others on their side. 76-24 is not a red flag outlier.

              1. I didn’t know I had that kind of power around here. So I am forcing you to side with the righties? One man CAN change the world I guess.

                Here’s what we know about the righties.

                They hand wring over 8% of the budget but not the other 92%.

                They blame anchor babies and foodstamps for something Reagan created.

                Kathy turned states evidence to avoid prosecution. I’m still wondering how she got a job with the righties after rolling over on them.

                Kathy has a shady past.

                For a computer specialist, Kathy should have her computer specialist tag revoked for not knowing MS Access automatically saves.

                Kathy should just resign for botching this election.

                Walker appears to shill for the Koch’s. I mean really, how much brown nosing do you need after that phone call he took?

                Walker doesn’t have a college degree. He hires people with no college degrees. But yet, Wisconsonites wonder what is wrong with Wisconsin?

                This was never a budget issue.

                MS Access saves data without the need of a save function.

                From where I’m sitting, something smells foul in Wisconsin.

  15. Brookfield posted their results in a PDF at 10:30 the night of the election, with the proper numbers. It’s still there.

    1. Also, a number of people reported seeing the municipality by municipality breakdown that scrolled across their screens showed zeros for Brookfield.

      I get the cynicism – certainly reasonable. This one sure seems to be very well summed up by one of my favorite quotes:

      Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.

      People have been complaining about that clerk for some time – a number of them, including Republicans and even Sykes himself, predicted that something like this would happen – that at some point, she’d screw up big enough to really make a mess. By all means, put her & the process through proper scrutiny and make sure it was proper. But from everything I’ve read/heard, it really looks like a count of the ballots & paper will end up showing that after screwing it up along the way, eventually she got it right.

      1. one of my favorite quotes

        Try this one: “Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.”

        including Republicans

        Would these include Walkersha Republicans, the people who put her in office and made her county GOP chair?

        1. look up the definition of malice–“the intent, without justification or excuse, to commit a wrongful act.”

          The quote doesn’t work.

          1. agreed Super she has justification, she had to please her old boss and she has an excuse – she has already gotten away scott free once with illegally tampering with elections.

          2. Tell it to the rocket scientist.

            Nickolaus was warned repeatedly that her idiotic, self-serving changes to the election system were flirting with disaster (and indeed resulted in several smaller disasters prior to this megaton bomb). She smirked in response. That’s indistinguishable from malice.

          3. Never heard of a drunk driver claiming he had no intent to kill an innocent family. Intent and malice don’t go hand in hand.

            Anyone can cliam NO intent after they willfully broke the law.

          5. The BASIC meaning of law doesn’t necessarily correspond to how we behave. No one can control a person sitting alone staring at election results. And that person being offered MILLIONS to just change a few votes. Not saying she did that. I’m just saying a person with a shady past is more likely to commit shady acts if given the chance, motive and money.

  16. It isn’t 50% of taxpayers, it is 50% of those that voted and as a whole in wisconsin only 1/3 of the people voted.

    1. Personally, to me it just shows how naive Americans can be. For some reason we think elections are fair and impartial in this country. We’re one step away from applying dye on our fingertip to show that we voted.

      Sad truth is ANYONE can be bought. It doesn’t take much for 98% of us to be bought off. Cut some taxes or give some credits. 98% of us can be bought off for that. Funny thing is, cutting 98% of our taxes only saves a few pennies on the dollar for most of us.

      I know pennies is a lot of money for Wisconsonites. But sometimes the greater good trumps Wisconsonites.

  17. I think there should be a full investigation to find out exactly how this happened for the sake of preserving voter confidence in our election system in Wisconsin.

    That said, if there was intent to fraudulently skew the election results this was an extremely poor way to do it. Criminals generally try to avoid scrutiny, not invite the harshest sort.

    I’ve read as much as I can find about Kathy Nickolaus, and while some of it sparks suspicion, even more points to a chronic screw-up displaying paranoid, difficult to understand behavior.

    Most ironic in all of this are the remarks made by Waukesha County Board Chairman Jim Dwyer and Nickolaus only three months ago when Nickolaus faced the executive committee over her resistance to adopting audit recommendations regarding her custom tailored “system”.

    ” There really is nothing funny about this, Kathy” said Dwyer.

    ” This isn’t that big of a deal” said Nickolaus.

    How more presciently right, and wrong, could two people possibly be.

    Here’s a Solomonesque solution. Given that Waukesha County has continued to elect Nickolaus despite both her shady past and obvious incompetence, they should pay for a statewide recount. Aren’t they the richest county in Wisconsin.

    C’mon Waukesha County; pony up or live forever under the pall of this strange affair.

    1. chronic screw-up displaying paranoid, difficult to understand behavior

      Unfortunately entirely routine in certain *cough* circles. I love how the Walkersha apologists are using “everyone knows she’s a dink, that’s how we roll here” to debunk allegations of fraud.

    1. No, no. I’m talking about the asinine “she’s too incompetent to be evil” defense deployed by Widgerson & Friends.

  19. I realize that it looks really bad, and any conservative would be very suspicious if this were Dane County in the other direction. However, her explanation is that she did not include the total from Brookfield, and that this was discovered when the vote totals were verified. What we are talking about is a difference between the unofficial vote total reported to the media and the official vote total certified with the state.

    I agree that this is a major screwup and she should probably lose her job over it. However, other than the fact that it looks suspicious, I have not heard another credible theory on how she would have manufacturered thousands new votes. If she had indeed included all of the votes correctly when she reported the unofficial results, and then she majically made up 14,000 new votes during the canvassing, it seems like this would easily be caught. If these are completely made up by her with no factual basis, then they would not match up with the results reported and verified by each precint. However, it seems relatively clear that what does not match up is the earlier “unofficial” results reported to the media. In addition, I believe there was a democract representative on the canvassing board and this person indicated that the numbers “jived” and that she had no objections to the final tally.

    In the end, if this is indeed human error on the part of the County Clerk, then Prosser is the person that should be the most upset. Had she reported the unofficial results correctly he would have been the clear winner. However, the misreporting will make his election (in the eyes of some voters) less legitimate.

    http://sharkandshepherd.blogspot.com/2011/04/this-is-vanilla.html

    1. Seems to me that you and Mr. Esenberg should be among the strongest proponents of an investigation to clear the air. But I’m getting a distinct whiff of “get over it.”

    2. ‘numbers “jived”’

      not sure that’s the correct word to use here:

      noun
      1. swing music or early jazz.
      2. the jargon associated with swing music and early jazz.
      3. Slang . deceptive, exaggerated, or meaningless talk: Don’t give me any of that jive!
      –verb (used without object)
      4. to play jive.
      5. to dance to jive; jitterbug.
      6. Slang . to engage in kidding, teasing, or exaggeration.
      –verb (used with object)
      7. Slang . to tease; fool; kid: Stop jiving me!
      –adjective
      8. Slang . insincere, pretentious, or deceptive.

    4. Still doesn’t jive.

      From what I recall, she said brookfield changed the spreadsheet. She then called or whatever and told them not to change the spreadsheet. Here is where it gets fishy to me.

      Did she fix the spreadsheet or did Brookfield resubmit the spreadsheet with the correct amount of columns.

      In my mind, it’s not her job to correct the spreadsheet. Brookfield must resubmit the spreadsheet. Right there is voter fraud if she corrected the spreadsheet.

      Anyways, what kind of computer specialist can’t password protect a spreadsheet so folks can’t change it?

  20. After reading Esenberg makes me want to give nicklouse a raise, for the outstanding, done thing wrong, job she has done.

    I do think though we need to seize her computers and get all telephone records of who she called and when from tuesday on. Since 8 hours before she “dropped the bomb” prosser was fundrasing as a “preserve the victory”.

    Maybe the republicans can use this as a teachable moment and immediately run through a bill making it illegal to be party Chair and clerk. To show how serious they are about clean elections.

Comments are closed.