The Wisconsin Supreme Court recount deadline is now being extended, from its original May 9 to May 26, due to slowness in one county — Waukesha County, which has been at the center of the vote-counting controversies in the race between conservative incumbent Justice David Prosser and liberal-backed challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg.
WisPolitics reports:
Waukesha County Corporation Counsel Tom Farley told the court the recount is about one-third finished in the county.
“We thought that the 26th would be a good target date and we certainly hope we can do that faster,” Farley said. “We’re doing our best, we think.”
The Government Accountability Board announced late Friday that the other 71 counties are expected to finish the recount by the end of business today. Farley said the Waukesha County canvass board will move to a larger room today and include more counters in an effort to speed up the process.
Wednesday, April 6, the day after the election, Kloppenburg declared victory on the basis of Associated Press figures showing 100% of precincts reported, with Kloppenburg enjoying the very narrow lead of 204 votes out of nearly 1.5 million.
Then that Thursday, as counties were conducting the official canvass to check for errors in their election night spreadsheets that were reported to the media, Nickolaus announced the discovery of un-tabulated votes from the city of Brookfield — giving Prosser a net gain of over 7,000 — saying that her own error had resulted in them not being properly imported and saved into the county’s database.
“I’m thankful that this error was caught early in the process and during the canvass,” Nickolaus said at her press conference at the time.
Three weeks ago, shortly before Kloppenburg requested the recount, the state Government Accountability Board (which oversees elections) released a statement that its study of the vote numbers in Waukesha County found that the totals checked out on the ballot-scanning equipment and other documentation from the municipalities.
Nickolaus has recused herself from heading up the county’s canvassing board in the recount.
