Wisconsin high court race yields mixed results
Photo
In this April 7, 2011 picture, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus holds a news conference in Waukesha, Wis. to explain how incorrect vote totals in the state's Supreme Court race were released on election night.
MADISON — When a little-known liberal challenged a conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, the once-sleepy race suddenly looked like a backdoor way for Gov. Scott Walker's opponents to sink his agenda.
Then a clerk discovered 14,000 unrecorded votes that vaulted the incumbent into the lead. Experts said the results represented a draw for the governor: He didn't lose, but the slim margin means he didn't win big, either. And the close contest could help ensure Walker's opponents stay energized for the next round.
The outcome also improves the odds that Walker's collective bargaining law would survive a legal challenge before the high court. Yet it falls short of a clear public endorsement of the governor's policy.
The conservative "didn't win by the margin everyone expected him to win by," said University of Wisconsin-Green Bay political science professor Michael Kraft. "If I were Walker, I wouldn't be saying everything is just dandy and people love me."
Only a short time ago, Justice David Prosser had been expected to coast to another term after 12 years on the bench.
In February, he emerged from a four-way primary with 55 percent of the vote, far ahead of JoAnne Kloppenburg, an assistant state attorney virtually no one had ever heard of. She came in a distant second with 28 percent, setting up an uphill run against Prosser in the general election.
Then outrage over Walker's plan to strip public workers of nearly all their union rights reached a crescendo. Tens of thousands of people converged on the state Capitol for three weeks of nonstop protests, and minority Democrats in the state Senate fled to Illinois to block a vote.
Republicans in the Legislature eventually passed the plan without Senate Democrats, and Walker signed it into law last month. The law is bogged down in multiple legal challenges, though, and has not taken effect.
Democrats and Kloppenburg supporters worked to tap into the anger surrounding the measure. They hoped electing Kloppenburg would tilt the state Supreme Court to the left, increasing the chances that the justices might eventually strike down the law.
They attacked Prosser as a Walker clone and sought to tie him to the governor's aggressive budget-cutting agenda. At first it looked as if the strategy had worked.
Kloppenburg's campaign surged, and voter turnout in Tuesday's election shattered expectations. Unofficial returns initially showed Kloppenburg with a 204-vote lead out of 1.5 million votes cast.
Then Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus — who worked under Prosser when he was a Republican legislator — announced Thursday she had failed to record 14,000 votes. Those ballots put Prosser ahead by 7,500 votes.
Nickolaus said she made an honest mistake. Still, state election officials dispatched staffers to the county to review Nickolaus' procedures and confirm the results.
On Friday, county clerks across the rest of the state were still verifying their numbers, too. Final results may not be known for days. Kloppenburg did not concede defeat and began raising money to cover the cost of a potential recount.
Prosser said it would be difficult for Kloppenburg to find another 7,500 in a recount. He said the election wasn't about Walker or collective bargaining, even though many people wanted it to be.
"I think it was about electing me to the Supreme Court," Prosser said.
A Walker spokesman echoed Prosser, saying the governor has consistently described the Supreme Court race as being about judicial qualifications, not a referendum on his policies.
If Prosser's lead holds up, the Supreme Court's conservative majority would remain intact. It's impossible to say for sure whether the bloc would uphold the law, but a Prosser victory would, at the very least, give the measure a better chance before the high court.
"This is a win for the right over the left. Had Kloppenburg won, it would have been a significant victory" for Walker's opponents, said University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee political scientist Mordecai Lee, a former Democratic state lawmaker.
"Now the Supreme Court as the sort of last stop for opponents has become a mirage. There's no point in getting there," Lee added.
Still, Kloppenburg's strong showing against an entrenched incumbent demonstrates that the divide over Walker's agenda remains as stark and deep as ever.
The election didn't deliver a clear endorsement of Walker's policies, but it didn't hurt him, either, said UW-Madison political scientist Ken Mayer.
"If Kloppenburg had won, you could have read that as pushback," Mayer said. "If Prosser had won 85 percent to 15 percent, you could have said, 'Yeah, that is evidence of the rest of the state pushing back against the pushback.'"
The mixed results make it hard to "draw any firm inferences about the fate of Scott Walker from this election," Mayer said.
The fight over collective bargaining now shifts to the efforts to recall some lawmakers. Walker isn't eligible to be recalled until January, after he has served a full year in office, but signature-gathering drives are under way against eight Republican and eight Democratic state senators.
Even though it appears Kloppenburg lost, her performance will probably inject more energy into the anti-Republican efforts and make it easier to gather signatures. On the other hand, both sides have been energized for months already.
Walker's clear goal is "to reshape the political landscape," Mayer said. "That's why emotions are running so high."
Apr 11, 2011 at 8:29 a.m.
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This story was written by Todd Richmond, who is a reporter for the Associated Press, not the Gazette.
Apr 9, 2011 at 3:44 p.m.
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You can't blame Jim Doyle for everything. Some of this goes back to Tommy Thompson.
Apr 9, 2011 at 3:42 p.m.
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I am going to stick up for the Gazette. I believe that most of the time, they try to be impartial and print two viewpoints for most every issue. It may seem at times that they don't. But, I believe that most of the time, they do try to be impartial.
Apr 9, 2011 at 2:06 p.m.
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Are you suggesting that the Gazette practices artificial dissemination?
Apr 9, 2011 at 1:12 p.m.
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Government Accountability Board form for filing complaints and demands for an investigation:
http://gab.wi.gov/node/1284
Apr 9, 2011 at 12:53 p.m.
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ddr......STOP THE PRESSES!!! You caught Walker--he was the mastermind of this entire event and he slipped up and let the press in on his evil plan--right? I mean--could one actually think there could be a reporting issue or two which involves a process that has well over a million votes coming in from hundreds of polling locations from all over the state??? Of course not--he was alluding to his unethical and illegal plan!
Seriously though--your insinuation is pretty pathetic........
Apr 9, 2011 at 11:38 a.m.
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You are always welcome to go to the polls and observe the process and stay to watch the vote counting.
It is well controlled and organized but gets hectic during the count as the public is used to instant results. Preliminary counts are given and then the vote tallying begins. Check it out any polling place after 8 PM and it is interesting to observe and learn. Confidence in a system is learned through experience.
Apr 9, 2011 at 10:51 a.m.
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This just in.
Shocking revelation from the right.
"Prosser appears to have won it's because of voter fraud."
Apr 9, 2011 at 10:42 a.m.
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The Gazette purports to diseminate the news. Yet on every occassion they put their own political spin on that news. I'm really impressed that they have the audacity to call themselves a "news" paper. I'm thinking there are more appropriate terms for this kind of journalism. Your heavily favored contender spoke out of turn, knowing that the election hadn't been certified. Now you villify Gov. Walker and Justice Prosser for something they had NO control over. Seems to me to be sour grapes on your part. Grow up.
Apr 9, 2011 at 10:29 a.m.
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interesting but expected comments from the left...if Kloppenburg won it would be an "angry message" of the people. now that Prosser appears to have won it's because of voter fraud.
Apr 9, 2011 at 10:11 a.m.
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Hold on a second...... Isn't there a story saying that the voters sent the governor a "strong angry message"? Now it's saying only "mixed results"? Hmmmmmmm.........
Apr 9, 2011 at 10:09 a.m.
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ddr: I believe you are correct. Walker knew the fix was coming.
That is almost unthinkable, isn't it? Would our governor really participate in something this sordid? Or have someone else "fix" the election?
I have absolutely no confidence in our governor, and maybe no confidence in any fairness in our election system anymore.
Apr 9, 2011 at 10:07 a.m.
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what is laughable to me, is when I read these boards and have to think hard if Jim Doyle changed his name to Scott Walker !!! apparently alot of people forgot who put us in this fiscal mess to begin with....
Apr 9, 2011 at 9:43 a.m.
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You make a good point.
Half of the state does, indeed, hate Walker.
Apr 9, 2011 at 9:35 a.m.
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I don't understand liberals. This election was billed as "A vote for Prosser is a vote for Walker". Well once again as in November Walker (and Prosser) won. If Walker is so hated,how come 51%+ of the state keeps voting for him? We need to get our State's financial house in order for future generations. Walker and conservatives realize this. Today's Democrats simply worry about themselves.
Apr 9, 2011 at 9:21 a.m.
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The general public and media do not seem to know that the results as reported to the State by any County on Election Night are not final. The results are NEVER final UNTIL they are canvassed. This is where she found the mistake. The "after Election paperwork" is massive, but there are so many checks and rechecks to make sure all votes are counted. Almost every canvass finds some problem, generally nothing as large as this, but again....this is what a Canvass is for - the final doublecheck.
The biggest errors occur when everyone is in a hurry to get the results sent in and paperwork done. Maybe Ms Nickolaus should have done the same thing on Election Night.
Apr 9, 2011 at 9:12 a.m.
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Thanks Wislady... it is "cut and dried"! There were no ploys for corruption. And once again, the voters of Wisconsin, voted their conscience. I'm pretty sure all union workers voted... but the fact that conservatives are STILL the majority, was proven once again.
Time to move on.
Apr 9, 2011 at 9:07 a.m.
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WALKER's FREUDIAN SLIP: He KNEW on - Wednesday - that the FIX WAS IN!
Edited on Fri Apr-08-11 02:39 PM by kpete
Walker weighs in as Kloppenburg claims win A recount could begin as soon as next week. "As long as the rules are clear, as long as there aren't ballots somehow found out of the blue that weren't counted before, things of that nature, as long as everything's above board, I think that’s fair," said Walker.
the rest:
http://www.wrn.com/2011/04/walker-weighs...... /
...............
Notice that Freudian slip? Scott Walker knew on Wednesday that the fix was in and coming on Thursday when he made this statement.
via:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/08......
Apr 9, 2011 at 9 a.m.
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What's Eric Wareheim doing in Waukesha?
Apr 9, 2011 at 8:48 a.m.
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We not only have an incompetent clerk in Waukesha but we have an incompetent governor, also. He doesn't have the first clue about how to lead. He will be gone soon. We just have to hope he doesn't ruin our state first.
Apr 9, 2011 at 8:45 a.m.
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Impactbike: This was not a federal election. This was a STATE ELECTION. Obama wasn't on the ticket. And the actions that Walker has taken since he got the governorship was on everyone's mind when they voted. Don't tell it wasn't because you and I both know better.
Apr 9, 2011 at 8:39 a.m.
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Brookfield: Office of City Clerk
http://www.ci.brookfield.wi.us/DocumentV...
Apr 9, 2011 at 8:33 a.m.
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No matter what happened, it will still be "Scotty, the One-Term Wonder."
Apr 9, 2011 at 8:26 a.m.
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For all those who think she "mysteriously" found those ballots... Another way of looking at it is that she tried to HIDE those ballots, but was caught. It is justice served, that those ballots were uncovered. Voters showed up at the polls to have their votes counted.
That said... she NEEDS to be fired. She is incompetent!
Apr 9, 2011 at 8:19 a.m.
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Either way that this story ends, the Wisconsin electorate will be the big loser. I hope that the strong voter turn out will continue well into the future. Local politics are just as important, if not moreso, than national elections.
Apr 9, 2011 at 7:43 a.m.
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The clear message here is Conservative values and the voters who believe in them still have the elections for judges, liberals have a very soft underbelly because of their soft on crime stance. This got way too ugly because of out of state union influence and money. upper hand. The HUGE Madison turnout was the reason this was close: Simple as that. Madison is a bubble of intense liberalism. Milwaukee can be too but the democratic base there is beginning to erode. People are seeing that voting democratic is not getting it done. When it comes to
Apr 9, 2011 at 7:42 a.m.
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I saw Kathy Nickolaus on the TV and she sure acted like she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Those late ballots are called "just in case" ballots.
Apr 9, 2011 at 7:05 a.m.
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All these idiots can now leave our state, stop making fools of themselves in the eyes of the world, go back to their jobs if they have one & accept the fact that they have lost. Even Mr. big mouth Jesse Jackson & bigger mouth, loser, Trumka couldn't change destiny. GET it people? Most of us are fed up with Obama & Unions that support him. I think the election was more about Obama & his Union buddies than collective bargaining. Had Trumka not bragged about how often he was in contact with the white house this could have gone differently.
Apr 9, 2011 at 6:23 a.m.
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elmo......yes, if she had previously worked for Kloppy, I could see it happening--but having previously worked for Prosser, and with Prosser having the support of her county, I would think that she would have made sure the data batches were imported into access correctly. The only thing I can think of is that maybe they had an issue when their employment led them in separate directions. Either that or it was an honest mistake?
Apr 9, 2011 at 6:10 a.m.
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Another biased article by an AP reporter.
Apr 9, 2011 at 6:03 a.m.
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There's more than just her working for Prosser. She helped develop the software that's used in the voting. When county board members wanted an audit done on a past election, she laughed and said that it's impossible for the system to have errors.
Apr 9, 2011 at 5:34 a.m.
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I don't know. It's probably just me, but, anybody else out there find it a remarkable coincidence that somebody who had once worked for Prosser accidentally "misplace" 14,000 votes which would swing the election results back to Prosser?
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