In one explosive stroke Thursday, the clerk in a Republican stronghold tilted the tight Supreme Court race in favor of Justice David Prosser by recovering thousands of untallied votes for the incumbent.
Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said Thursday that she failed to save on her computer and then report 14,315 votes in the city of Brookfield, omitting them entirely in an unofficial total she released after Tuesday’s election. With other smaller errors in Waukesha County, Prosser gained 7,582 votes over his challenger, JoAnne Kloppenburg, leaving the sitting justice significantly ahead for now amid ongoing official counting.
"I’m thankful that this error was caught early in the process. This is not a case of extra ballots being found. This is human error which I apologize for," Nickolaus said, her voice wavering as she spoke to reporters.
The figures are still far from final in a race that had previously seemed almost certain to see a statewide recount. Around the state, elections officials Thursday were tweaking unofficial results from the day before that had put Kloppenburg, an assistant attorney general, ahead of Prosser by a razor-thin 204 votes.
Read more here: Corrected tally in Waukesha County gives Prosser 7,500-vote edge – JSOnline.
