Wisconsin

[dieseltaylor]

An area I have carefully avoided so far but I must admit to being a little riled by the current voting scandal [potential scandal]. I do not care a hoot who wins but for a democracy the safety of the ballot box I rate very highly.

Incidentally I assume this is getting a lot of coverage in the US...?

Added - a more low-key report:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/119486574.html

which is perhaps more measured in its reporting.

And are the figures really out of line:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/119519294.html

but

Not at first glance.

The new figures put the total vote in the city of Brookfield at 14,315. Brookfield has a voting-age population in the 2010 census of 29,007. So that would make its April 5 turnout equal to 49.4% of voting-age adults. That number is 15 points higher than the statewide turnout of roughly 34%, but there is nothing odd about that. Brookfield is a high-turnout community in a high-turnout county. Last fall, Brookfield had a rather amazing turnout of 73% of voting-age adults, which was 23 points higher than the statewide turnout of 50% of voting-age adults.

[dieseltaylor]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/119497684.html

Waukesha is a very interesting place. In the whole of Wisconsin it is the only substantial place [over 50000 voters] where Prosser did better than 2 to 1 over his opposition.

Have done a spreadsheet of the results from above and of all the major conurbations Prosser has done best here. Also the missing votes went to him by 3.2 votes for every one to his opponent. The average for Waukesha prior to the missing ballots being found was 2.8 in his favour.

The highest polling area for Prosser in Wisconsin was Washington which gave him 3.1

Now forgive me for this but if I were collating voting figures as my job I would have a spreadsheet ready to fill in the figures as they came in. ANd if my highest voting area was missing you would expect to notice it - wouldn't you. Which comes back to wondering about exceptionally high voting in September. In no way am I saying it is impossible but outliers are often worth investifgating to establish why they are what they are ... and that also goes for under-reporting areas also.

There were concerns in the past with Nickolaus' computer system, which has been criticized as outdated. Her election operation was the subject of a county audit last year after complaints that she was not cooperative with information technology specialists who wanted to check the system's integrity and backup. The audit concluded that while the clerk's system generally complies with state and federal guidelines and accuracy of election totals was not at issue, Nickolaus should improve security and backup procedures.

Her reported resistance to advice or help from other county departments and her self-imposed insularity raise serious questions about her judgment and suitability for the post.

The incident also raises the issue of whether the same error would have been made by someone appointed to the post and subject to administrative oversight. The idea of electing county clerks may have become even more of an anachronism this week than it was before.