Many Problems in Milwaukee County Recount but NO REPORTS!...My experiences (Warning-LONG)

I worked on the recount in Milwaukee County last Thursday, and it was quite a disturbing and stifling experience. I left there puzzled and frustrated, and have been searching for news on 'anomalies' there, but find next to nothing. News reports have only stated there have been "no major problems", and things are "going smoothly"...

Kloppenburg stated at her recount request press conference:
There are legitimate and widespread questions about the conduct of this election – most visibly in Waukesha County, but also in counties around the state...We are aware of widespread anomalies that occurred...: an undervote in the cities of Milwaukee and Racine; the Waukesha situation; reports of long lines and photocopied ballots in several counties including Fond du Lac; significant changes in the vote totals in Winnebago County.

People here have wondered if Waukesha County 'irregularities' were perhaps a red herring, and that maybe we should be looking more closely at what's happening in other counties around the state. I really think so. I've compiled some information on the recount problems in Milwaukee County, many of which I witnessed. Some observations are more significant than others, and this is by no means a comprehensive list, so please add to it if you have other info.

1) PUBLIC KEPT FROM BEING ABLE TO OBSERVE RECOUNT
The Milwaukee Co. recount took place in the gloomy Franklin Sports arena. First off, why didn't they hold it in a place more accessible to the public? This was out on the western edge of a suburb, with no public transportation access that I could see.

Inside the arena they had set up a large metal barricade, guarded by security police, that served to separate the Public Viewing Area from the Counting Area. For the record, each county has a barrier of some type for this purpose. The public has a right to observe procedures but cannot walk among the counting tables. You have to be a designated rep for either Kloppenburg or Prosser to observe within the counting area.

Here was the problem in Milwaukee Co: The barricade was set up at LEAST 20 yards away from the tables - WAY too far away to be able to view the counting and reconciling procedures that were taking place. In comparison, in Dane Co. the distance is about 10 feet, and in Waukesha you literally stand 1' away from the counting tables.

Granted, after the city of Milwaukee finished their recount there were many unneeded tables within this corral. But no effort was made to remove the now unnecessary tables, and move the barricade in.

2)PROSSER CAMP STRICTLY LIMITS NUMBER OF DESIGNATED OBSERVERS
When I arrived to work, I was told by the Kloppenburg observer rep on duty that we couldn't go into the counting area until another Kloppenberg observer left. This was different from what I had experienced at the Dane Co. recount, where there were often 2 or even 3 designated reps per party observing each table. (That was very helpful, as we could work in teams of 2 and be able to compare notes, relieve each other for a short time, etc.)

The security guards had said we could go in if we had a Kloppenburg pass, so I was curious as to the disparity. I was told that the Prosser camp had thrown a "fit" and demanded only 1 designated observer at a time, per party, per table be allowed inside the counting area. We were told we could only stand in the public viewing area, from where we could see nothing. I asked if there was a regulation that covered this issue, but the person I spoke with was unable to provide a concrete answer.

3) PROSSER CAMP LIMITS WHERE WE CAN OBSERVE
Our recount observer quide stated we could roam freely among the tables, and get as close as we need to, as long as we didn't get in anyone's way. This is how it worked in Dane Co. But in Milwaukee Co., observers were told they couldn't count from the same side of the table as the "tabulators". They had to stand across the table from the tabulators. This means the observer is viewing the ballots UPSIDE DOWN.

In addition, Prosser lawyers had a special table within the corral which we were told was 'OFF LIMITS' - "Do not go near their table". Kloppenburg lawyers, fewer in number by far, had no such table, but I suppose this was a matter of choice.

4)TABULATORS HINDERED US FROM COUNTING THE VOTES
I was the only designated Kloppenburg rep observing the machine recount who had a click counter that afternoon (another reason it helps to have more observers in there!), so I monitored the two machine recounts that took place that afternoon. I had no trouble counting along with the first one (though other problems are described in next section). The SECOND one was quite different.

At about 4pm, I took over for someone who was leaving. As she passed her notes to me, we realized they had already started the machine recount without due notice or any observers present (not even from Prosser's camp - who, in fact, NEVER showed up for this count). We IMMEDIATELY bolted to the machine, but the "tabulator" was feeding the ballots through extremely fast, plus used her body and hands to try to obscure my view. I had to constantly move up and down, side to side to try to see the ballot...

We asked her to slow down several times, but she told us they had to be done by 6:00 pm and that she would NOT slow down.

I was surprised to find a DKos account of someone who had this same problem, on the same day, in Milw. Co. They must have been there in the morning, as (already stated) I was the only one tallying the machine recounts with a clicker by afternoon. This part describes my experience precisely:

Armed with my "clicker", I was horrified to see them feed the ballots in to the machine so quickly that the vote couldn't even be seen by me, much less counted. A pile was placed just below the ballot intake slot and one ballot after another was fed in as fast as the machine could take it with the ballot being fed in obscuring seeing the ballot below it. When the next ballot was obtained, the fast movement into the machine precluded seeing the vote as the ballot was moved so quickly and sucked into the machine. Since the votes in the Supreme Court election were at the top of the ballot, no visual record could be made...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/06/973718/-Extens... -

(Aside - This tactic was used also in OZAUKEE County, and attorneys had to be called in on multiple days)

My "relievee" went to get the attorney. From the point he intervened the tabulator begrudgingly complied, so I was able to keep an accurate count with my clicker, though I had no idea how many ballots had already gone through and was dismayed that my vote count was inaccurate from the start.

5) SOME VOTES I COUNTED WERE NOT COUNTED BY MACHINE
When the machine recount was complete, I had counted 11 more votes for Joanne Kloppenburg than the machine had counted (there may have been more had I been allowed to start at the beginning). There were many more votes in this Wauwatosa ward for Prosser than for Kloppenburg, so it was easy to keep up with the clicker. I am confident my count was accurate from the time they slowed down....

The reason I think the count was off was that a number of ballots were filled out lightly in PENCIL. I also noted one ballot had a line that didn't completely connect the arrow. That would keep the machine from reading the ballot properly. I'd love to know which precinct gave voters pencils instead of markers...

The votes the machine didn't count are lost. Those ballots are NOT taken back out to be hand counted. This shows that with a machine counting our votes, many votes are lost and many voters disenfranchised.

About the Machine:
These ballots were counted on an Optech Insight machine. Constant troubles with it throwing out error messages, due to miniscule dots, smudges, and sometimes no visible problem. I was told that meant the problem (mark, smudge, whatever) was on the BACK of the ballot (which we weren't shown).

If the machine rejected a ballot, the "Tabulator" would re-feed the ballot into the machine multiple times to try to get it to register. They were supposed to give it 3 tries, and if it didn't take, the ballot was to be set aside to be hand counted. But many times the tabulator would try 5 or 6 times before setting it aside - sometimes it took, sometimes not. This happened so frequently that the counting process was slowed down considerably. It seemed it would have been faster to recount them all by hand.

6) LARGE NUMBER UNDERVOTES for SUPREME COURT RACE
DU'er gkhouston asked me to keep an eye out for undervotes. I did notice something odd. During both machine recounts I observed that day, I noticed a number of surprising ballots that didn't have a vote for the Supreme Court race, but DID have a vote for Chris Abele -Dem candidate for Milwaukee County Executive - on the top right side of the ballot. I wasn't keeping a true count, but there must have been at least 20 of these undervotes.

Now I wonder why we were warned NOT to count anything but the SC race! As was noted by someone earlier, if the SC votes are correct to the tapes, but another race isn't, that would be verrrry interesting.

Chris Abele ended up winning the race for Milwaukee County Executive defeating Republican Jeff Stone. This is the position previously held by Governor Scott Walker "whose controversial anti-union law has sharply divided the state." (MJS)

Seems extremely odd to me that a person would be aware of and support this candidate but not take the opportunity to also vote for Kloppenburg!

WHY DID ONLY 57% of VOTERS VOTE FOR KLOPPENBURG?
Beats me, in a heavy unionized area, where the voters voted for Obama by a 6.5% larger margin (my understanding). Another DU'er (sorry forgot name!!) Said, "Undervotes in Milwaukee and Racine were reported, which may have reduced vote totals in the Supreme Court race. For example, Milwaukee reported roughly 2,000 more votes for county executive than for the Supreme Court. Those undervotes could be intentional or they could be due to malfunctioning machines or other errors."

7) MULTIPLE UNSECURED & OPEN BALLOT BAGS
I already reported on this here with pics: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

I noticed a large number of uncounted ballot bags from Wauwatosa, lined up against the wall in stacks. At least 6 of the bags in the front row were improperly sealed, with very large openings of appx 8" on each side of the tags. It was impossible to tell how many more bags were unsecured in this manner behind those in front.

Lefta Dissenter also said earlier last week that in Milwaukee Co., "there have been little stacks of ballots just sitting on the top of the voting machines in something like 8 different wards, bags not sealed well - again, the openings large enough to stick one's hand in the top of the bag to access ballots."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That is about it. Sorry it took me so long to say all this. I do hope it is of some value to our DU community and even beyond!

I do not trust the validity of this election at all.

Then I saw "revote."

But I must say I agree either way...

it was Kloppenburg that called for the recount, she should have final say of rules.

They had 3 or 4 attorneys at their special table plus a few guys in suits whose role was unclear. We had 1 attorney who frankly didn't seem too alert...I really could have used his presence while I was working but I never saw him again til after the recount finished.

Prosser had the allotted number of 1 observer per table per party, but during the 2 machine counts I observed, there was NO Prosser rep counting his votes. It was as if they didn't feel it was necessary...

They had 2 or 3 per table observing in Dane County-- where they felt they needed more. It seems they cut back on the number in Milwaukee to hinder Kloppenburg. Why were they so sure of themselves there, while at the same time they had a small army of lawyers?

Several of the tabulators were really rude, even hostile to us, and the one aggressively attempted to keep us from counting votes.

It was all about stifling us and keeping the public away, too. And we did not have enough assistance, which is really unfortunate.

I do hope so!

Maybe this will set the stage for reform in the long run if it doesn't fix the problem in the short run. Here's hoping.

Testimony is being gathered from these recount experiences, which makes me hopeful that there might be further action.

1) PUBLIC KEPT FROM BEING ABLE TO OBSERVE RECOUNT
As I have stated and Jeremy Ryan confirmed, the room there is setup in a manner that allows for close observation of every aspect even when not allowed inside of the "blue lline". This remained true even yesterday - the first in the cafeteria with many more tablulators.

2)PROSSER CAMP STRICTLY LIMITS NUMBER OF DESIGNATED OBSERVERS
This has been true in Waukesha all along. We were allowed 7 people behind blue line in old room and 12 in the new.

3) PROSSER CAMP LIMITS WHERE WE CAN OBSERVE
We have not had this happen at ALL.

4)TABULATORS HINDERED US FROM COUNTING THE VOTES
Not the case in Waukesha either. They have been wonderful in ensuring we can see everything.

5) SOME VOTES I COUNTED WERE NOT COUNTED BY MACHINE
While we have much less going through these machines, every time I have counted along with it, it's been dead-on.

6) LARGE NUMBER UNDERVOTES for SUPREME COURT RACE
We're not seeing a lot of blank ballots for SC race

7) MULTIPLE UNSECURED & OPEN BALLOT BAGS
Well... here's *our* issue - this is very well known and documented.

Thanks for your report; I hope you sent onto the campaign as well.

I don't find it odd that a significant number skipped the Supreme Court race. Abele's campaign was well funded and did a great deal of work. He was also helped by the general disgust over Walker's performance as both county executive and governor. It was well known that Stone had supported Walker, and he could not shake off that fact. In contrast, both Prosser and Kloppenburg took the public financing and didn't have the resources to mount a substantial campaign (statewide for them), as Abele had done. (I believe the Democratic Party was not able to do much in the way of formal support because of campaign finance laws.) Then too, judicial races are not as interesting to many people who aren't as plugged into politics as we are (although of course they should be). The relentless negative advertising from outside groups on both sides most likely turned off some people from voting for either one.

An outside observer trying to analyze patterns and statistics doesn't have the familiarity with the issues of the region they're looking at, which can make a big difference.

I tend to think everyone in the "blue" areas cares as much about beating Prosser in the Supreme Court race as we do! Well they SHOULD, dammit! You are right about the smear campaigns on both sides. It wasn't pretty.

This reminds me of a thread I was reading the other day, where analysts were perplexed over Dem candidate Kathleen Falk's poor performance in Dane County last year when she lost the Atty. General seat to thug, J.B. Van Hollen. Here in Dane County Falk had avidly supported the very unpopular idea of allowing a Native American casino to be built in Madison. She also strongly supported a tobacco ban in Madison & Dane Co bars. She lost a lot of fans here for one or both reasons.

As JSamuels pointed out, The City of Milwaukee had 22,000 more votes for Supreme Court than for County Executive. This means that of the rest of Milwaukee County (less than half of the total votes) had at least 22,000 ballots that voted for County Executive but NOT for the Supreme Court race.

Don't you think that's odd?

And wow, in the City of Milwaukee votes were all recounted by hand, whereas in Milwaukee County, the suburbs of Bayside, Greendale, St. Francis and Wauwatosa were recounted by machine. Just a factoid to chew on ;)

The Milwaukee City Election website shows a total of 117,593 votes for Supreme Court and 119,495 for county exec. Specifically, Prosser 37,624 / Kloppenburg 79,561 // Stone 32,464 / Abele 86,604 (the rest write-ins). http://itmdapps.ci.mil.wi.us/electionresults/elecweb.jsp (This site shows only totals for each office.) Interestingly, Abele outperformed Kloppenburg, while Stone underperformed Prosser.

From the Milwaukee County site, which shows ward-by-ward data, I looked at a small sample of Milwaukee wards and also came up with slightly more votes for county exec than Supreme Court. That is also consistent with the ballots I watched go by during the recount. http://county.milwaukee.gov/2011ElectionResults)

What is so discouraging is that if everyone who voted for Abele had voted for Kloppenburg, plus a few hundred votes, we would be looking forward to her taking the bench in August instead of talking about this.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/11/965916/-Strange-Numbers-from-Waukesha-and-Milwaukee-Counties-on-Supreme-Court-Only-Ballots

Interested to hear your take on this- Let me know if you find flaws. He posted it in early-mid April.

I followed the hyperlinks for Milwaukee City and Milwaukee County. For Milwaukee City, I'm getting the following math:

total number of ballots cast: 122,046

total number of votes in the SC race: 117,593

total number of votes in the county executive race: 119,495

Which means there are actually more votes in the county executive race, not fewer, although the difference is only ~1900, according to those numbers.

I'd be interested in following his reasoning here, assuming it wasn't just a brain fart. Maybe I'm missing something.

I hope he'll come back and explain.

It happens to all of us.

trying to figure out why on Earth Stone would be doing well in places where Prosser was doing poorly. I finally had the sense to go back and check -- I'd mis-pasted the names at the top of the column. :eyes:

would be easy to justify a total manual recount, after the race is certified... that may be an interesting moment to hear what the attorneys have to say.

is there a point in recounting a bad which already has a doubtful history?

that it has no documented chain of custody should (dare I say) disqualify it from being counted.

number of ballots and the minutes posted for Milwaukee county. They've moved it into the "complete" column but the minutes haven't been posted on the GAB website and even today's spreadsheet doesn't have the total number of ballots cast in the election for many of the reporting units, including all of Milwaukee county.

I'm interested in the number of non-votes (any ballot not counted in the "Prosser", "Kloppenberg", or "scatter" categories) because it varies so much from one reporting unit to the next. So far, the village of Ellsworth in Pierce county wins the "I Voted... well, not so much" award: 67 of 773 ballots had no vote counted for the SC race. That sticks out because 97% of the wards reporting the number of all ballots cast in the election had 10 or fewer non-votes, regardless of size, and 67% had 5 or fewer.

I'm wondering if ballots could have been preferentially kicked out by tabulators to favor one candidate over another. Giving people pencils ("Oh, I'm so sorry, the special pens have dried up." "Sorry, we don't seem to have enough of them. Got a pencil?") in certain areas would be a low-tech way to do it. How noticeable that would be depends on the size of the reporting unit, of course. 23 votes is only 1% for the town of Windsor (Dane county), but it's 15% for the village of Readstown (Vernon county). In the city of Delafield (Waukesha county), which had chain-of-custody problems, there are 31 non-votes, but since the reporting unit's fairly large, the non-vote percentage (1.26%) looks small.

Undervotes are spotty and there's a plausible reason for them.

Where I live, we had a school funding referendum and a hot school board race. That brought out a lot of new spring voters who only voted for those two issues and nothing else on the ballot. We had a huge percentage of undervotes from people who weren't paying attention to the other races on the ballot.

So many of us would never dream of going to vote and then only doing half the job. Heck, some people go to vote to keep their registration up to date or to show their friends/family/employers that they went to vote, but then run a blank ballot through the counter because there was nothing they wanted to vote for.

Go figure. :shrug:

I can see the total number of ballots cast for the whole state. Right now, they've only got the total ballots cast for about 60% of the reporting units. What usually draws my eye is a marked difference in undervote in the same small area--Saukville in Ozaukee, for example. There are two reporting units, roughly equivalent in size, yet the number of undervotes is nearly four times greater in one of them. That sort of them makes me go, "Hmm."

...once they posts the stats. I wish I had more information to offer. This was my first experience observing election procedures, and there is a lot to absorb. We newbs had to hit the ground running and learn as we went.

of tabulators apparently trying to keep you from estimating the undervotes or seeing the ballots, it makes me wonder if there's actually something going on. When an election conducted on paper ballots is counted and recounted only by machine, we're placing a lot of trust in the integrity of those machines and the people who program and handle them. It would be nice if the undervotes could be physically inspected to ensure that our trust has not been misplaced.

Blank ballots in SC race are pulled out and inspected by Board here. We are reviewing every ballot.

I think those of you that really care about this election being fair are going to have to keep up the pressure to ensure that if there are suspect practices and fishy situations, they get addressed, and that the public remains informed about the things you found suspicious.

Thanks so much for sharing it with all of us here at DU. It really makes me wonder about the quality of the elections that happen in MY state.

Many of us really do care, and between us, will keep up the pressure. I agree that is so important to make the public aware of what is going on - it is NOT all "going smoothly" with 'no major problems" as the MSM would have people believe.

I thank you for caring about this, and for supporting us. As long as we allow machines and memory packs to count our votes, our elections will lack transparency and integrity. Good luck in your state!

:yourock:

it does raise suspicions. And the level of rudeness and hostility shown towards the Klop observers by some of the tabulators was alarming too. Combine that with the stifling scene, the Prosser camp calling all the shots, and the "anomalies" ... We deserve a recount of the Milwaukee Co recount. ha.

:-) Abele polled over 85% in 20% of the reporting units. Kloppenberg tended to do well in those same locations. The % of the vote she got was within 5 points of Abele's % in 67% of the reporting units and within 10 points in 93% of the units. The total number of valid votes cast in the county executive race (Stone/Abele) is more than that for Prosser/Kloppenberg in about 75% of the reporting units. If we subtract out the total number of votes cast in the Stone/Abele race to "cover" some of the ballots not counted as votes in the SC race, that only accounts for 25% of the votes not counted for some SC candidate.

So, we've got about 4500 undervotes in the county executive race and about 5800 in the SC race. There were some other races (several circuit judges, and two district positions each involving several wards in Milwaukee), but they didn't command the same sort of participation that the county executive and SC races did. Unless people were showing up and not voting at all, 2.5% of the vote got tossed in the bit bucket.

I personally don't think it's likely that significant numbers of people show up at a spring election to vote a blank ballot simply to stay registered in a state with same-day registration. Unless WI voter cards only last six months (where I live they're good for about two years), the um, "low intensity" voters would be more likely IMO to meander into a fall election and vote a straight ticket--if they bothered to come at all. From what I understand of the way things work in WI, the only advantage to keeping your registration active by voting would be to not have to fill out the paperwork again. I'm sure someone local will set me straight on this point.

but didn't care a whit about the definitive Kloppenburg vs Prosser race. (BTW I bow to your superior abilities as a statistician!!!)
:toast:

The difference in votes cast between the two races in Milwaukee county was less than .6% of all the ballots cast, and there were more votes cast in the Supreme Court race in 43% of the reporting units. It is true that Kloppenberg did about 3 points better outside of Milwaukee city than she did inside it. Not sure if that's counter-intuitive.

I need to compile all your data, have more coffee, and hopefully it'll all make sense to my befuddled brain ;)

I observed in Marathon county. We had no issue with being close to all recount activities. It helped to have election workers there as observers, so they knew the county clerk and had her respect. The Prosser people far outnumbered us but they were surprisingly civil and we got along well. No issues with the number of people observing, though we were fortunate to have enough people that we could take advantage of regular breaks and sit down for awhile.

We stood right next to the tabulating machines and had no trouble observing the ballots as they were put in the machine. We also objected to machine counting those ballots we observed with bad marks, and never were refused a "hand count" on anything that looked questionable.

Some wards did have high undervote numbers, but they were districts that had a "hot" race or referendum on the ballot which brought in voters who don't normally vote in spring elections and therefore don't pay attention to the other spring races.

We rarely had trouble matching the machine tallies to our "clicker" counts, but when they didn't match, with one exception, we knew it was human error on our part. That exception turned out to be an election night error that was not corrected properly, which caused quite a stir among the Prosser observers as it flipped 3 votes from him to KloJo. That was the closest we ever came to a pitched battle with the opposition. Thankfully, the town clerk and election officials could come in and tell us what happened. Things settled down after that.

Our biggest problem was a Republican ballot counter who always handled the ballots in a way that made seeing what he was seeing almost impossible. Big Jerk Republicans are becoming a stereotype.

Racine, Winnebago, Ozaukee, & Fond du Lac to name a few.

It is interesting to see how the recount procedures and protocol differed between the counties. It appears Milwaukee WAS repressive compared with Marathon, Waukesha and Dane.

We really should have been allowed to work in teams of 2. Those ballots should probably have been challenged before they went into the machine. It takes your full attention to keep up with your clicker when they are shoving the ballots through so quickly. There were well over 1,300 ballots in that count. Even after the attorney told her she had to slow it way down, she was still going fast - not too fast for me to keep up, but too fast for me to keep up PLUS call out challenges. I'm sure this is why Prosser limited Kloppenburg's observers there. By the time I'd check the vote and notice light ballot marks, they'd already be sucked into the machine.

At that point I didn't know they would NOT be counted. It was my 1st experience with machine recounts (Dane was all done by hand).
It was only when the final machine tally came out and I had the 11 vote discrepency that I wondered what may have caused the discrepency and thought again about the pencil-marked ballots.

I've used the click counter for at least 20 different counts -ballots and reconciliations- and have never been off by more than 1 or 2. When it is that close sometimes you can't be sure if you are the one who is right or wrong, unless you know you accidentally hit it --in which case you can later correct it. I usually tend to assume it is me but this time I knew it wasn't.

It's good to be able to share these experiences. It is a hell of a lot of pressure going through this sometimes... you feel such a sense of responsibility, and a lot really is on your shoulders.

It helped me that I'd observed two other recounts so I had a general idea what to expect. And I really have to credit the county canvass board. They were really good to work with and we really did our best to accommodate each other.

Maybe it was in part because I wasn't as edgy about it as the Prosser people they were a little more open to the Kloppenburg team.

I'm sure it would have been far more stressful in counties where there were laywers in the room for one or the other candidate. All the accounts I've heard of that it was much more like a pressure cooker, as they say.

n/t

Why would people unrec this? so sick of trolls here...

eor :yourock:

This is what we have to do to even begin to address the voting issues in this country.

You're detailed oriented, which is great. Make notes of names whenever possible & take pictures of set-ups. Save all your information in one place, make copies for safekeeping.

If ever there was a need for a federal investigation, this is it!

:mad:

to do whatever I could in Wisconsin if it should ever happen here. You never think it could get this bad in your "own" state. Ha.

I wonder about complicity among board members, too - read up on what happened in Ky, and 9 people ended up getting jail time of 156 years. They had such shenanigans as a judge switching from the Republican party to the Democratic party so that she could "work the other side" (and then switch people's votes).

There is a lot of money involved in buying elections.

I wrote: "PROSSER CAMP LIMITS WHERE WE CAN OBSERVE
...In Milwaukee Co., observers were told they couldn't count from the same side of the table as the "tabulators". They had to stand across the table from the tabulators. This means the observer is viewing the ballots UPSIDE DOWN."

Observers were allowed to sit across the table from the tabulators during hand counts.