Tag Archives: Canvassing

November 19, 2012 · 1:14 AM

Allen West falls further behind

Allen West truly deserves everything that has come his way since November 6, 2012…

West’s desperate attempts to retain his seat in Congress gets more hilarious by the day.  It’s such a feel-good story to write about, knowing that this narcissistic former congressman will not keep his seat after all, no matter how many recounts he asks for.

Politico

Florida Rep. Allen West’s reelection prospects grew dimmer Sunday, as a recount of early ballots showed him falling further behind his Democratic opponent.

Democrat Patrick Murphy, a 29-year-old construction company executive, gained 242 votes after the St. Lucie County Supervisor of Elections completed its re-tabulation, increasing his lead to more than 2,100 votes over West, a tea party hero. Murphy’s lead is just outside the 0.5 percent margin that would trigger an automatic district-wide recount under Florida law.

West won a legal battle Friday when the office’s canvassing board decided to re-tally all early votes that had been cast. The Republican had argued that those votes had been accidentally double-counted on election night and provided a winning margin to Murphy.

But with Murphy’s margin growing after the recount, West’s legal options appeared to narrow. With St. Lucie County having a noon deadline Sunday for certifying its election results, Murphy’s campaign argued that the election was effectively over. Florida has a Tuesday deadline for certifying the results from all three counties that make up the 18th Congressional District.

“By state law, he is effectively the winner,” Eric Johnson, a senior Murphy advisor, said in an interview.

Tim Edson, West’s campaign manager, said the advisers would be spending the coming hours assessing the vote totals. He did not specify whether the congressman had any plans to concede. Advisers said it was unlikely any decision would come Sunday.

“We’re going to take a look at where things stand,” Edson said. “If we believe the results are fair and accurate, we’re going to decide how to move forward. That decision has not been made.”

The fresh results marked the latest chapter in an increasingly chaotic and drawn-out election, which has extended nearly two weeks past the Nov. 6 election.

Gertrude Walker, the St. Lucie elections supervisor, has acknowledged errors in counting ballots, saying there was an initial error in feeding memory cards from voting machines through the vote-counting system. At a press conference last week, Walker said her office had acted in “haste” to make public results on Nov. 6 and that “mistakes were made.” On Friday, at a canvassing board hearing, the office announced that it had found 304 early-cast ballots in a box that had previously been uncounted.

Read more here… 

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April 8, 2011 · 2:45 AM

UPDATED: Conservative Waukesha County Clerk “Finds” 7,000 Votes For Prosser

Crooks & Liars

4:30pm Update: In her press conference about a half-hour ago, Kathy Nickolaus claimed she failed to import the results from Brookfield City into her master tally that was reported to the press. The numbers she reported as an ‘update’ which gave Prosser 7,000 more votes were clearly reported in real time on election night.

As expected, Brookfield city voters ran up a good turnout in the state Supreme Court race and gave incumbent Justice David Prosser nearly 11,000 votes.

Unofficial, unaudited results showed 76 percent of city residents who voted picked Prosser, with 24 percent voting for challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg.

The numbers were identical to the ones Nickolaus just reported. She claims they weren’t imported into the spreadsheet, but if that were true, the discrepancy should have been 14,715 votes total.

Part of the problem is how she’s using different numbers for the same conclusion. The difference between 14,715 and 3,456 is 7,403. Those would be the “extra”. But in order to believe her, you have to assume the AP just let an entire town and a bunch of precincts stand at ZERO despite having reported in nearly 15,000 votes.

–>End update

Sure, sure it was a computer error. This comes from County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus just a few minutes ago.

David Prosser gained about 7,582 votes in Waukesha County, according to a summary statement from the board of canvassers.

Canvassers around the state were updating their totals Thursday, with Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg each making gains.

Those changes pale in comparison to the change in Waukesha County, where Prosser’s total increased by 11,008 and Kloppenburg’s rose 3,426.

County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus is planning a news conference in about 20 minutes to explain the change from initial reports Tuesday night.

Waukesha County’s board of canvassers just met in the county courthouse in Waukesha. It was earlier reported that Prosser picked up 200 votes in New Berlin after a clerical error was discovered, according to Pat Karcher, a member of the board of canvassers in Waukesha County. Karcher spoke during a break in the canvassers meeting. The error occurred in Ward 12, where a vote for Prosser was reported as 37 but the tape revealed 237 votes for Prosser.

It seems that Kathy Nickolaus has a history with regard to questionable election practices:

The issue came to a head when Nickolaus removed the election results collection and tallying system from the county computer network this spring and installed it on standalone personal computers in her office. She has said they are backed up with redundant systems.

Director of Administration Norman A. Cummings said Nickolaus has been uncooperative with attempts to have information technologists review the system and confirm the backups.

He said he isn’t interested in placing the system on the county network, but he wants to know whether the system is functional and secure and whether the county will have to replace equipment and programs in the next budget year – in time for the next presidential election.

“It is not a good idea to have one person in charge of everything,” Cummings told the committee. “There should be someone who also reviews things. I’m not saying it should be IT. But there should be more accountability than there is now.”

Nickolaus had asked for a postponement of the discussion because she had scheduled poll worker training before the matter was scheduled for committee action.

In several memos to the committee, she said she didn’t have confidence that security wouldn’t be breached with the county’s information technology department.

She presented information from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission that said voting systems should never be connected to a network not under the election official’s control.

She also said she’s running the most current election software certified – as required – by the state.

The only old equipment, she wrote, was a computer that collects results from local polling places by modem over the telephone lines.

Waukesha County is one of three or four counties that use that method.

Read more at www.jsonline.com
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