Kloppenburg Campaign Manager files complaint against Waukesha County Clerk

The complaint – which you can see in full HERE – runs through facts that are stunning to see in all of their collected negligent and/or criminal glory, including some that are brand new for me.

At the conclusion of the document, Joanne Kloppenburg’s campaign manager Melissa Muliken calls for an independent investigation into Waukesha County Clerk Nickolaus on the part of G.A.B. to be conducted by an appointed special investigator and followed up by a “civil action for civil forfeitures and injunctive and declaratory relief”.

If the G.A.B. does not appoint an independent investigator to do the job, then Muliken asks that the G.A.B. refer the matter to a district attorney.

I knew about much of what was laid out in this complaint, BUT I was not certain that Kathy Nickolaus…

“did not publicly release any evidence such as a print-out form from her data system substantiating her explanation of the alleged “human error” in reporting the election results”

..and while I knew that the Democratic canvasser who spoke during the 4/7/11 press conference later expressed confusion and doubt about what went on, I didn’t know Nickolaus-

“did not mention the election-night omition of the Brookfield votes from the County’s vote totals during the Board of Canvassers public meeting”, and the G.A.B., the Brookfield City Clerk, and the County Canvass Board members had no idea of the magnitude of the ommission – that being that the entire village of Brookfield’s votes were gone – until the 5:30PM press conference 2 days after the April 5th vote.

(At this moment, I am inclined to just tug my hair out.)

The next three points Muliken brings up suggest at best a very chummy relationship between Prosser, Walker and Nickolaus. If our worst fears guide us, we imagine a full-on plot to rig the election.

The points add fuel in this request for a full and independent investigation.

1)The complaint notes that on the evening of Wednesday April 6th, David Prosser and Scott Walker had a “private one-on-one meeting” and adds that

2)Scott Walker made public statements that same day that ‘there might be “ballots somewhere, somehow found out of the blue that weren’t counted before” ‘

3)The complaint adds – without interpretation of these events – that Kathy Nicholous communicated with conservative media outlets such as the National Review online before communicating with the press of Wisconsin about the found votes.

The complaint then walks through a list of election red flags, including the one which stuns me each and every time I read it:

In 2004 Nicholous reported that 97.63% of the eligible voters in Waukesha cast ballots in that election. 

Just to point out how wild this number is ….Even in countries where voting is compulsory and eligible citizens are punished if they don’t vote, the voting rates are not this high!!

Examples:  Belgium at 93% and the Netherlands (when they did it) at 94.7% Source

Wisconsin’s G.A.B. intends to erase evidence in advance of statewide Kloppenburg/Prosser recount.

Hide and Seek

No. No. No.   The G.A.B is preparing to erase evidence?

**Update**–Evidence was not erased and will not be erased before a recount is conducted, all data to be backed up-if can’t be backed up – then hand recount serves as the recount More Here

“We are preparing to file an action in Circuit Court (represented by the Wisconsin Department of Justice) this Thursday, April 21 to seek court relief in some fashion to obtain permission to clear memory devices for reuse during the recount or to conduct a Statewide hand count of all ballots in the recount.”-Wisconsin Government Accountability Board

Obviously the G.A.B. seeks to retabulate the ballots cast during the election using the same machines that counted them in the first place.

But we need to rule out or validate possible foulplay: reprogramming of machines to flip votes. If I were Kloppenburg, I’d demand evaluation of the programming and the memory on voting machines in Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee counties and a hand recount of those votes.

[Please, edgy right wing trollers, take note. I am careful to not assume Republicans in Wisconsin or Republicans in these counties are criminals. I used the words “rule out” or “validate possible” in front of “foulplay”.]

In the article, “Whats Wrong with Waukesha Wisconsin? More Anomalies in Prosser and Kloppenburg Race” Eric Nelson sees

“…the possibility that some of these electronic voting machines have been reprogrammed to flip votes to a particular party or candidate in areas with high vote totals. The rationale for this would be that it would be much easier and more efficient to flip votes in heavy turnout and heavily partisan voting wards and the likelihood of being discovered would be far less.”

His data evaluation points to suspicion in Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee counties.

“only Waukesha county and to a lesser extent Washington and Ozaukee showed positive correlations between vote totals and vote spread (see Nelson’s data graphs at the original article). What this means is that in Waukesha as the number of votes that were tabulated in a particular ward became larger the magnitude of Prosser’s victory tended to become larger.”

Nelson did not see the same data trends on Kloppenburg’s side: “When we looked at counties where Kloppenburg won by a large margin such as Dane, Ashland and Bayfield counties there was no correlation between the vote total in a particular ward and the vote spread between Kloppenburg and Prosser. This was also true for Douglas and Eau Claire counties.”

Nelson calls for hand recounts in wards with high vote totals that used some type of electronic devices and also showed  “a very large spread between candidates”.

I couldn’t agree more.

I assume Joanne Kloppenburg will work to block G.A.B.’s attempt to erase voting device memory. Let’s all stay tuned.

Allegations of a secret meeting between Prosser and Walker

” .. in her complaint seeking a probe of Nickolaus, Kloppenburg alleges Prosser had a one-on-one meeting with Republican Gov. Scott Walker on the day after the election . ..

Prosser and Walker aide Chris Schrimpf denied the two met on April 6…

Melissa Mulliken, Kloppenburg’s campaign manager, said she had been in touch with two or three people with knowledge of a Prosser-Walker meeting, including at least one who observed Prosser entering the meeting. She declined to name the people.” – from MJS

I haven’t located the original complaint document, yet and I don’t understand what rules/laws might have been broken during the alleged meeting.

Add any  info you can provide  in a comment here and stay tuned…

Full Footage of Press Conference: Joanne Kloppenburg Files a Recount, Calls for Independent Investigation of Waukesha County Clerk

A direct link to the recorded press conference on YouTube.

And here’s the full text of her statement in PDF format. 

These are some pesky election “anomalies” we should be talking about.

And for a stroll down memory lane….previous articles:

Kloppenburg wins by an unofficial, uncertified 204 vote lead.

My Notes: Nickolaus’ explanation for discovering thousands of votes – April 7 press conference.

Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus Worked Under Prosser in a Wisconsin Assembly Dissolved by Scandal [April 10 article]

U.S. Attorney General’s help in election investigation requested by Rep. Baldwin

Joanne Kloppenburg