However, in that Senate district, the margin is small enough for the loser to want to insist on a recount. Recounts give us a look into the state's system. Since there certainly will not be a statewide recount, this will at least test the system.

This whole thing smells.

vote total statewide can trigger a recount. In individual legislative districts, though, a close vote can result in a recount for that district in that race. As far as I know, that's how it works in every state.

It's completely unrealistic to think any recount will occur on the state level. It isn't going to happen.

Maybe if they find evidence of election fraud, that would trigger some kind of investigation to the rest of the state. I hope.

turns up in that district, then that won't happen. It will, however, be an indication that fraud probably isn't why Walker won. For a statewide election, the fraud would need to be statewide.

They may need to look at similar issue
s in other areas.

how many times has evidence of fraud caused anyone to look into similar issues in other areas?

I think the answer is probably *never*.

That whole egregious thing with the miraculously discovered ballot bags ripped, duct-taped and mislabeled should have had *every* Wisconsin election hand counted and double checked.

prior to getting an independent investigation in our election system? I guess all of us.

by doing a hand recount of all the votes in randomly-selected precincts. Those precincts are not known before the election. Those test recounts are monitored by both parties. So, any statewide election fraud would be detected by that process. So, if you're in Minnesota, you know that the elections are run properly. Further evidence comes from two statewide recounts, in 2008 and 2010. Again, both parties monitored the entire process. I don't know what Wisconsin's process is for testing their election system, but Minnesota does a good job. We don't have election fraud here. Nobody's disenfranchised.

I think Wisconsin does the same. The paper ballots are sealed after the election, and unsealed in case of a recount. Recounts are done under the watchful eyes of people from both parties. In the Al Franken recall, the process took a very long time, indeed, including review by the courts. Recounts are expensive and time-consuming. Minnesota refined its recount process before the 2010 election, where another statewide recount took place for the Governor's race. That went more quickly. We had practice. No evidence of election fraud was discovered in either recount.

I've just read an article stating that in some precincts in WI, the optical scanning voting machines were replaced with paperless machines. That truly concerns me.

Even with paper ballots and optical scanners, it doesn't keep shady election officials from discovering bags of uncounted ballots after the election was already called. I'm referring to WI last Supreme Court justice race and Kathy Nickolaus in Waukesha county.

after another recount. That's two that I know of personally and participated in. Minnesota has an excellent election system. I'm not in Wisconsin, so I don't know how theirs works in detail.

any race where there was a large margin of victory. Most states have automatically triggered recounts when races are very close, and have procedures where the loser can demand a recount if the margin is larger. Where margins are over 5% as in Wisconsin, nobody ever demands a recount. There is no possibility that such a recount will occur, unless someone has solid evidence that there was widespread fraud. Suspicions won't do it.

There simply won't.

How did Lehman manage to pull out a win? One would think he would have lost by similar margins, no? We're talking about the same ballots here.

It's entirely possible that that district didn't like the sitting state Senator well enough not to recall him. I don't know how that district's vote on the recall of Walker went, but different results are always possible in legislative elections. Lehman won because people voted for him. Even people who voted for Walker might well have voted for Lehman. That's how it works. Legislative elections are local.

election for the state Senate race. People often vote one way for one thing and another way for another. For example, Obama won by a large margin in Minnesota in 2008, but Al Franken had to win after a long, painstaking recount. Same voters, different margins.

Election basics, really. Each race gets a different result. That people voted for Walker doesn't mean that they didn't vote for Lehman.

She can only be involved for her own county. Understanding how this works is fundamental knowledge. Without it, you can't understand elections.

We don't believe that bullshit that's been thrown down our throats from the MSM about this election. It's not that hard to understand.

I have a grip - a grip on reality. This has nothing to do with the MSM. It has to do with a possible recount in a state Senate race in Wisconsin. That shouldn't be that hard to understand. And it's serious, not a joke.

occurrences like 10-18% of Obama supporters coming out to vote for Walker. Whether you want to believe it or not, many people believe that election fraud is bigger than we wanted to ever admit to ourselves. In light of having no recourse to fix the myriad of problems to ensure fair elections, we joke. Getting Kathy Nickolaus to come find votes is funny to many of us.

I do appreciate you're telling us how this broken election process works. Seems like we need some out-of-the-box thinking to instill confidence in our election system.

But, elections often don't go the way I would like. They always have. That does not mean that I automatically assume election fraud. People vote as they vote. Sometimes, it's for stupid reasons, in my opinion. This is one of those cases, I think.

That an election doesn't go as I wish it did doesn't mean it was fraudulent. It means that it didn't go the way I think it did. The reasons for that are different for every such election.

Could there have been fraud? Sure. Was there? I do not know. The point of my OP is that the one close Senate race may end up in a recount, where we can take a look at how it went. I hope that happens.

There will be no statewide recount.

meet these 10-18% of Obama supporters in November who supported Walker this election. We simply don't believe it.

We both want to dig into this election and have the results proven to us. We all can't come from your viewpoint of we won't propose election fraud until we have hard evidence. How do we get that hard evidence? If no one questions results, then we have an emperor-has-no-clothes scenario, and nothing gets done. Don't kill the naysayers. They're often there to help.

I mean, as recently as 2004 you were posting that gay people should not be allowed around children, and when 'explaining' that you said you were really wrong, deeply uninformed and remained so while you had access to all the most current information, just as we all did. So a person that was THAT wrong once, hugely, definitively and hatefully incorrect, when that person comes along preaching their grip on 'reality' I personally see good reason to question that person's basic and foundational abilities to judge what is right and wrong.

See:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=journals&uid=231858

This thread is about a recount in Wisconsin.

I don't see why the clerk in that district might not get her phone number (may even have it on speed-dial). The conversation might start something like this: 21st-"Yeah, Kathy. We got a little problem down here we need a little help with and I was wondering if maybe I could pick your brain about how to fix it". And voila! A little PC number crunching here, a box of false uncounted ballots there...Vanwanggard wins!

I understand how the election process works. Unfortunately, living in WI the past couple decades, I also see how the process seems to consistently appear circumvented.

Paper-ballots, counted in public view. That will make it so when we tackle party message to voters and campaign cash...maybe the vote can actually be honest. Right now, I have no faith.

And you live there. Some in this thread are saying it can not be fraud because WI uses all paper ballots....

The ballots are then run through optiscans. Those were replaced in many areas with new free machines from Command Central before the recall election. Even before that the safety of the Optiscans had been called into question.
-

If so, you can work with any movement for that or start one. If you're not in Wisconsin, your advocacy is likely to fail.

... and I can actually do a local recount with no authority other than my own.

If anyone can do a recount, then that would be a great idea. DUers and other Democrats throughout the state could recount their own precincts or districts. Is there a plan to do that?

I don't think we have that capability here in Minnesota, so I'd love to hear how that works. Maybe it's something we can implement here.

Will you report what you find here?

Walker has been under criminal investigation for months. If that's not misconduct, I don't know what is.