Wednesday, April 27, 2011
1:12 PM
Waukesha County takes lunch break, another glitch
In Waukesha County, the recount broke for lunch a little after noon with the tabulation still working through the Town of Brookfield and another glitch.
JoAnne Kloppenburg had lost two votes in a portion of the town with 148 votes, compared with the original tally of 150. David Prosser’s votes remained the same at 494. But only about 25 percent of the Town of Brookfield’s votes had been tallied.
The tally had issues with five absentee ballots.
The five were rejected by the voting machine initially because the voters had used regular ink to fill in the arrows, instead of lead pencil or special markers. In those cases, poll workers make duplicate ballots using pencil and initial them. The five original ink ballots were there on the table, but only four remade ballots could be located.
Judge Robert Mawdsley said he would consult the GAB over the lunch hour to see what to do.
“This is an anomaly we have to talk about,” he said
Other than that, there were no objections raised to the recount tallies. However, Mawdsley said objections can be made at a later time.
“This is like a long jury trial,” Mawdsley said, in that unexpected delays can make for long days for participants.
He also said he is taking extra precautions to record everything and follow procedures meticulously.
“It’s going slowly but it’s definitely a learning process,” he said. “We’re all moving along at a pace that I think is careful. We’re making a record here for the GAB; we’re making a record here that could end up in court. The record has to be carefully and thoroughly made.”
UPDATE: 2:35 p.m. -- A final look at four "remade" ballots from the first three wards to be counted in the Town of Brookfield yielded three additional votes for Prosser and one added vote for Kloppenburg. So the final recount totals for those three wards were 497 votes for Prosser and 149 for Kloppenburg. That compares with the originally reported totals of 494 for Prosser and 150 for Kloppenburg.
The board of canvassers and each tabulator who touched the ballots were asked to sign the ballot bags, which were then resealed and marked with new seal numbers.
The recount will continue this afternoon with the remaining wards of the Town of Brookfield. The tabulation will continue until about 5 p.m. It is not certain that the entire Town of Brookfield votes can be recounted by the end of the day.
The completed reporting unit from the Town of Brookfield is just the first of about 194 reporting units in Waukesha County, which contains 37 municipalities.
-- By Kay Nolan
Labels: 2011 spring election
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