Hat Tip BFH@iOTW – “The insane beady-eyed nut, who claims she would have been a fair jurist, has finally begrudgingly conceded, saying in the process that she had run a campaign that was “respectful, honest and fair.” She claimed victory the moment she was one vote ahead and hung onto this like a stubborn, stupid junkyard dog – but in an respectful, honest and fair fashion.”…. Madison – Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg on Tuesday conceded the Supreme Court race to Justice David Prosser, ending a contentious campaign that culminated in a rare statewide recount. Kloppenburg made the concession at a Madison news conference just more than a week after the state’s Government Accountability Board reported that the final count showed Prosser with 7,006 more votes – a thin margin but one unlikely to change.
She said she had called Prosser on Tuesday morning to congratulate him and say she would not seek to challenge his victory in court.
“It would serve no purpose to bring a suit with insufficient legal basis. That is not the kind of lawyer that I am,” Kloppenburg said.
The move paves the way for Prosser to begin a new, 10-year term on Aug. 1 without a legal case prolonging the uncertainty of the extensive recount. Kloppenburg defended her decision to seek the taxpayer-funded recount, saying it had ensured the integrity of the election and uncovered “widespread irregularities” that she is outlining to state elections officials in a letter.
Prosser thanked Kloppenburg for a “very gracious” concession and said he hadn’t doubted his victory in spite of the difficult campaign. The Prosser campaign scrambled to respond to the concession, organizing an impromptu news conference in which the justice spoke from a podium fashioned from a cardboard box and leather notebook.
“I have come through with a greater appreciation of our political process and an enormous gratitude to the people of Wisconsin,” Prosser said.
Though the April 5 election was officially nonpartisan, the campaign had all the feel of a partisan race: Conservatives tended to support Prosser, while liberals backed Kloppenburg.
Kloppenburg, an assistant attorney general, was a little-known underdog in the race until the fight began in February over Gov. Scott Walker’s legislation ending collective bargaining. Union supporters backed Kloppenburg and sought to make the race a referendum over the Republican governor’s union measure.
Kloppenburg asked for the recount – the first statewide recount in two decades – after losing by 7,316 votes in the April 5 election out of 1.5 million cast. A review by The Associated Press of all 72 counties found that the recount would cost more than $260,000 with Dane, Milwaukee and Waukesha counties still tallying their costs.
Waukesha County, a stronghold for Prosser, became the epicenter of the recount after County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus failed to report all of Brookfield’s 14,000 votes in her unofficial April 5 election night totals given to the media. She explained her mistake as human error two days later in a news conference, after the official canvass was complete.
That changed what had been a 204-vote win for Kloppenburg into a 7,000-plus-vote victory for Prosser. Waukesha County finished its recount last.
Kloppenburg said flatly Tuesday that “David Prosser has won this election.” She said she had made her decisions first to seek the recount and then to concede without consulting with union leaders or anyone else outside of close confidants.
In doing so, she said she had never considered seeking to delay Prosser from taking office or considered the court’s cases, which could include a legal challenge to Walker’s union bargaining bill.
Kloppenburg said the recount had uncovered “significant and widespread errors and anomalies” in the securing of ballots and recording of votes. She said 150 ballot bags with tens of thousands of votes were found open, unsealed or torn and some uncounted ballots were found in Dane, Milwaukee, Marquette and Jackson counties.
Kloppenburg said she was calling for improvements in the state’s elections system by both the state Government Accountability Board and local clerks.
“This recount should serve as a wake-up call to improve Wisconsin’s election processes,” Kloppenburg said.
Kloppenburg repeated her call for an “independent” investigation of the problems with the vote totals in Waukesha County. So far, the Accountability Board, which runs state elections, has handled that review.
For his part, Prosser said he was confident in the results.
“The electoral system involves people and people are human and people make errors. But when you look at the whole election, the number of errors was really very small, and I think people of Wisconsin can have great confidence in the overall operation of our electoral system,” he said.
Kloppenburg declined to say whether she would consider running for office again. But she did say the recent campaign, one of the most agonizing in recent history for the Supreme Court, had been “fun.” (full article)