Posted on 04/11/2011 1:08:25 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) -- Wisconsin Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin sent a letter Friday to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking for a federal investigation into the "questionable handling" of votes in her state's Supreme Court race.
On Thursday, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus revealed that she incorrectly entered vote totals in the state's hotly contested high court race.
According to unofficial tallies, the incumbent Justice David Prosser now has a 7,500-vote lead over opponent JoAnne Kloppenburg.
As of 4 p.m. Wednesday, a final, unofficial vote count had showed Kloppenburg, the state's assistant attorney general, with 204 more votes than Prosser.
The city of Brookfield sent its results to Nickolaus, who reportedly put them in the system but forgot to save the data. She later discovered her mistake and added the missing votes again.
"This is not a case of extra votes or extra ballots being found," Nickolaus said last week. "This is human error, which I apologize for."
Nickolaus is reportedly a Republican, has worked for a state GOP caucus that was once controlled by Prosser, and has previously faced criticism for her handling of elections.
Baldwin, a Democrat, wrote Holder, "Following this week's election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, numerous constituents have contacted me expressing serious doubt that this election was a free and fair one. They fear, as I do, that political interests are manipulating the results."
"To assure public confidence in our democratic election process and guarantee that votes are fairly counted and reported," Baldwin asked Holder to assign the Justice Department Public Integrity Section, which oversees the federal prosecution of election crimes, to investigate the matter.
Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle told Fox News in an e-mail Saturday that the department would review the letter. He declined to comment further.
Prosser has sat on the Court since 1998. Kloppenburg has worked as a litigator and prosecutor with the state Department of Justice since 1989.
Though the race is nonpartisan, Prosser is part of the conservative majority on the Court. A Kloppenburg win most likely would have tilted the Court to the left. Her taking the seat also might have impacted the ongoing legal challenge to Gov. Scott Walker's Budget Repair Bill.
The bill has been a source of controversy for months now, eliminating nearly all collective bargaining rights for those public employee union members. The Republican governor had proposed the bill in response to state budget deficits.
Nearly 1.5 million votes were cast in the race.
Liberals will stop at nothing to steal elections...
I would be shocked if Holder got involved in this. He does not want to be seen as a partisan. /s
“Baldwin, a Democrat, wrote Holder, “Following this week’s election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, numerous constituents have contacted me expressing serious doubt that this election was a free and fair one. They fear, as I do, that political interests are manipulating the results.”
Because the winner wasn’t the Democrat, right Tammy? I’m sure you got a lot of calls from your constituents too.
What a quandary for leftists: they have been so adept at rigging, manipulating, and outright fraud in elections and in gaming the system that they can’t see anything but that everywhere they look, even if it’s not there.
I don’t understand the point.
Wasn’t this about the AP getting one set of numbers and officials getting another? After all the AP is nobody of importance.
Why hasn’t this race been certified and declared official?
He’s going to HAVE to get involved. After all, he’s got to do his part to help his ‘people’, doesn’t he?
Because a Democrat didn’t win.
Tammy should ask for a refund.
If Nickolaus was a Dem, you would never have seen this sentence in print (except maybe for a right-leaning publication).
Yep Eric Holder’s Group will be in the news as states begin the redistricting process since some states have to get approval of their plan.
The rats are still in a state of zombie like shock over the SC election...they just can't believe that they lost.
You had to know this was coming........
Holder doesn’t like white folks, and both candidates are “white”. He’ll stay away from this one.
Why? Did one of ‘his people’ see a police car 5 miles from their polling place and feel ‘intimidates’?................
Correct me if I’m wrong, but they could have reported the Kloppingturd had 1.5 million votes, and Prosser had zero, but as long as the report went to AP, no law was violated.
Now if AP is stupid enough to believe the numbers, and if the donkeys are stupid enough to use unverified AP numbers in order to figure how many votes they need to manufacture to sway the election, that’s their problem.
What really PO’s the democrats is that they figured they could game the election if they knew they only needed some 7,000 more phantom votes - but because of their own stupidy, they didn’t find out until it was too late.
I believe the counties have until April 15th to complete their canvass of the vote and submit their official totals to the state.
Projection...............
I still don’t see what the issue is. The votes are legitimate. What are the RATS crying about?
The last thing they want is for Prosser to get involved as a judge on this. Sumi already screwed up by casting a vote while her son is in the union fighting this. Prosser can just cite this and it is over.
They lost. Get over it.
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