Waukesha County: City of Brookfield Recount Starts With Ballot Bags Dispute (six new bags)

[Ellipsis]

Judge allows six not completely sealed ballot bags to be opened and their ballots counted despite objections from Kloppenburg campaign.


The City of Brookfield's recount of its state Supreme Court race votes started this morning with an objection to opening and counting the first six ballot bags because they were not completely cinched at the top, leaving an open gap.

Bill Hoft, a representative for JoAnne Kloppenburg's campaign, objected to opening the bags, saying there was no way to know if they were secure and untampered. Brandon O'Bryon, from the campaign for incumbent Justice David Prosser, said they should be open and cited testimony from Brookfield City Clerk Kristine Schmidt about the protective custody her office makes of ballot bags after the election.

Schmidt said the bags were heavy with the ballots from Wards 1, 2 and 3, which places strain on the plastic bags, causing a gap at their opening, which is sealed with a red security tie.

http://muskego.patch.com/articles/city-of-brookfield-recount-starts-with-ballot-bags-dispute

[HelenWheels]

1. Another dirty deed

As soon as the bags were opened these votes were mixed in with all the other votes.

[PufPuf23]

9. Sure seems to me that the counts from any improperly

sealed or otherwise mis-labeled ballot bag should be counted but separate from ballot bags without any apparent problem.

[gkhouston]

16. According to DUer PeaceNikki, they do count them separately.

Although that may be somewhat moot. A few days ago, with only 10% of the vote counted, all but one of the bags had some sort of problem. I'm expecting one hell of a legal battle in another few weeks.

[Ellipsis]

24. I think all tallied it's 14 bags that have been an issue.

[PeaceNikki]

25. That's not true: "all but one of the bags had some sort of problem"

All but one MUNICIPALITY had at least one bag with a problem.

[gkhouston]

28. Thanks for the correction. n/t

[LiberalAndProud]

32. In your experience have the bags with problems always been weighted for Prosser?

That would be an interesting statistic to contemplate.

[PeaceNikki]

33. I have been doing that math. I am a professional data geek so this has been fascinating for me.

The bags in question that I have observed are NOT more heavily weighted heavily towards Prosser. They've all been in line or slightly more Kloppenburg. I don't have the #'s in front of me on all, but I have memory of the Tuesday sitch from Oconomowoc. There were 3 bags, 1 with an issue. The one with an issue was 35/65 which leaned SLIGHTLY more Kloppenburg than the others - about 3% higher.

Believe me, I am looking.

Also... please note that in this county - it's ALL weighted toward Prosser. We're looking for more weighted than the other bags in units.

[LiberalAndProud]

34. Thanks, PeaceNikki. I'm so glad you're there with eyes on the process.

I do believe you.

[PeaceNikki]

35. I *wish* there was clear evidence of fraud.

As of now, there's clear evidence of slop that there COULD have allowed for fraud, which is different. We're only about 20% done so it could shake out differently in the end. We'll keep watching and keep objecting and keep entering into evidence.

[LiberalAndProud]

36. Me too. Clear evidence would put it to rest.

I think if there has been tampering they've refined it to an art by now.

[PeaceNikki]

37. Indeed. In order for them to do it, they would have had to alter

optical scan machines at polls and then tamper with the proper amount of ballots to hold up against this recount. Possible? Sure, but certainly not easy to prove at this juncture. Again, we are not investigating fraud, we're recounting. The Board will ALWAYS rule to count the ballots unless it's very clear (which it's not) or the numbers don't reconcile to tapes (and they've been).

[gkhouston]

38. But does it have to be more weighted?

Assume, for the moment that you have a way to successfully add more ballots than have genuinely been cast.

:tinfoilhat:

Comfy now? Yes, that's a big if--you'd have to game the tabulator, add ballots after the fact, and doctor paperwork. I don't see how it could be done without the knowledge of the city/town official, the county clerk, and possibly some others. But if it could be done, you wouldn't have to stuff the bags with a suspiciously high ratio of ballots for Prosser. All you have to do is vote for all those people who didn't show up. You'd get a near 100% turnout, with about 65% of the vote going to Prosser. If you did that, for every 1000 ballots you added, 650 would go to Prosser and 350 to Kloppenberg, increasing Prosser's lead by 300.

I would think it would be easier to replace a similar number of ballots when you've flipped the votes in advance than add ballots after the fact, but that 97% turnout sticks out like a sore thumb. I'm also wondering why the % of total votes to ballots cast is twice as high in Milwaukee county as it is in Waukesha. Did that many people truly make no choice in the SC race?

[Pab Sungenis]

2. Why is the Kloppenberg campaign not IN COURT RIGHT NOW

to STOP this farce? There is PAINFULLY obvious FRAUD being committed here.

[Ellipsis]

5. I'm sure they will be after the count is fininshed.,,, and it will be contentious without a doubt.

[LiberalAndProud]

3. I don't favor disenfranchisement of voters, so I am sympathic to the judge's ruling.

However, the validity of the results of the recount will never be concise. It is possible that there could have been tampering, and that's messed up.

[Ellipsis]

6. ... "A future court to decide." I think are the key words there.

I'm curious if this kind of thing has been occurring in other counties ... and just because of the close scrutiny in Waukesha is why we are hearing about more failure.

These bags are wimpy, wimpy, wimpy. It sound like they are overfilling them beyond recommended capacity.

[hobbit709]

7. Stealing the election is not disenfranchisement?

[Ellipsis]

10. Er... you have any facts based off of your statement? You have some answers we don't know about ?

Post them. Making statements wishing them to be true... wanting them to be true, WILL not make them true. Ya know what I mean?

[hobbit709]

11. If it looks like a duck, etc.

The whole thing about the votes in that county smells of deceased fish.

[Ellipsis]

14. I agree 100 % with you. It's a little early to say treason has been commited is all.

[Cieran_WI]

31. And everyone said it was too early to say Walker

would go so low as consider planting violent agent provocateurs in the protest crowd, but we all know the way the GOP operates but had no "proof" until an awesome guy from Buffalo punked our Governor.

[spotbird]

12. Why have security precautions

if they are ignored?

[Warren Stupidity]

15. The procedures for validating that the ballots have not been tampered with

were violated. How does that not qualify as "disenfranchisement"? The bags are open at the top and anyone could reach in and remove/replace/alter the contents. This election was FUBAR. Our election processes in general are a joke.

[Ellipsis]

22. Broken chain of custody yes... disenfranchised? ...not yet, but perhaps soon.

[xchrom]

4. recommend

[damntexdem]

8. Their excuse boils down to that they use a knowingly-inadequate system ...

to secure the ballots.

[Ellipsis]

13. They strike me as sloppy... and that goes back to Nichols.

I don't give a good goddamn about the high percentage turn out they have. The possibility that these votes to be disqualified goes up with every problem they continue to find and Waukesha county is a getting to be one giant clusterfuck of problems... if people get disenfranchised off this sloppiness, they have only their own arrogant clerk to blame.

[gkhouston]

17. It's an interesting twist on not sending enough voting machines.

You don't send enough bags for the turnout, so the bags can't be sealed properly. Presto, "accidental" open ballot bags. So, who allocated the number of bags sent? Nickolaus or someone at GAB? Was there any fallback procedure for what to do if you run out of bags? If not, why not? If so, why did it fail?

[Ellipsis]

21. Heh... I sure with all the national attentions procedure will not be a concern henceforth.

My understanding is the county clerks are in charge procuring materials.

[shraby]

18. Are they keeping those ballots separate? If not, they should

be since they are sure to be challenged.

[Ellipsis]

20. I'm sure they are. I'd guess PeaceNikki will fill us in before long..with pictures I wouldn't doubt.

[PeaceNikki]

27. Yes. Every bag challenged in my presence is counted separately.

Counted AND tallied separately and then together for the reporting unit as a whole.

[shraby]

30. Thanks.

[EC]

19. And of course

Brookfield is the extra votes that "were found" 2 days later...ample time to "create" 3 new bags of votes.

[Ellipsis]

23. It's not quite that simple, but this IS getting seriously effed up.

And they are only begining to count the cities.

[buddysmellgood]

26. I think you have the right sense for this. We've been so screwed in

past elections, that everyone is on edge. If the election was screwed with, we have to catch them. We are using the process to do that. There is no other way.

[MasonJar]

29. It is time to redo this election with a new official in charge of this area.

[MadisonMike]

39. I know its been said

But major thanks to PeaceNikki for being the inside scoop on all things Waukesha. Im in Madison and have been helping out in the Dane County recount, but wow, you are keeping us all informed. i check this site daily and tell my coworkers whats going on in Waukesha and we're all equally frustrated. But thank you for letting us know that the anomalies arent being ignored and cooling our heads (atleast mine) when you let us know that its being reported and objected :)