There are so many coincidences, this sure looks like fraud. At best, it is gross incompetence and half the populace will never trust the results. Shameful either way.

back off she's a member of seiu!!

If it was me with all the error in so many important election,I wouldn't have a job after that many so call human error,as long as she is counting the ballot I would never have any confidence in her ability to count accurately or fairly

I think this whole thing was a conspiracy by the liberals to hide those votes for Prosser, but during canvassing they were exposed.
I believe there should be a federal investigation of the unions and their goon members.

RECOUNT!!!

Yeah, just too many "human error" with this woman. It's time for her to move on which I'm sure will be the case in a few weeks! Kept results on her personal computer for security reasons, ah right! I'm sure the network is probably setup with very good security better than her Windows 98 home computer, LOL!

And exactly the number of votes needed to stop a state funded recount - are they that confident in not being caught?

Come on people. Anyone who uses a computer knows that an error like this can easily happen. All votes were entered, but anyone on a busy election night could easily forget to do a "Save". Why do people think it was an intentional error? If there were enough votes from this town to put him over the top, it would be stupid to withhold votes and then give them the next day or two. This apparently was a human error. No one would ever do this purposely. Would you want all this trouble, and a possible loss of your job? I think not. Give the county a break. Even the Democrat at the election site said everything was legit and counted correctly! It is unfortunate this happened, but how many of you people can say that you have NEVER made a mistake in your lifetime? No one - so accept this and move on to more important things.

I think the clerk intentionally left out 10800 plus votes for Prosser because clearly she wanted him to win. Makes perfect sense! The next time she wants to try to pull election fraud she would be better served to forget the votes in a city that supports the OTHER canidate. HA HA HA HA HA. Why would anyone who is trying to win an election for Prosser not want to include the vote totals from an overwhelmingly Republican stronghold? Do you conspiracy theorists realize Brookfield posted their numbers online Tuesday night? THESE NUMBERS HAVEN'T CHANGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! y

Liberals need to get over it. They had no problem when Al Franken stole the Minnesota Senate election.

Wisconsin voters deserve better. Work to insulate the system from corruption. You deserve a fair election.

I truly believe that this was an error on her part, not any kind of fraud, but be that as it may....I'm annoyed that my vote wasn't counted when it should have been counted. At any rate, given her history with "mistakes" in the past, I truly think it's time to give someone else that job. No matter the outcome of any recount or investigation, we need someone else in that position. This sort of thing CANNOT keep happening. Apparently, she's just not right for the job. She can apologize all she wants, but this is not the first time she's been responsible for "human error". Time for her to admit that she can't do the job she was hired to do.

If the Dane County Clerk had found 14.000 votes the day after the election that flipped the race to Kloppenberg then all of these smug teabaggers would be reaching for the guns, placards rife with misspelled words and Obama pinatas that they were brandishing during the health care reform "debate." It is essential to our democracy that people have confidence in the fundamental fairness of the electoral process. The failure to count 14,000 votes from any County, be it red, blue or purple, is unacceptable. Prosser has apparently won re-election but the incompetence of Ms. Nickolaus has unfortunately tainted his victory.

A number of comments on this story seem to suggest that Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus is a hired public employee and union member. The office of county clerk is a State Constitutional office, with the clerk being elected by the people of Waukesha County. Nickolaus was first elected in 2002. She is not eligible for union membership and she cannot be fired, as she is accountable to the electorate.

Unfortunate everything regarding politics in Wisconsin leads to "must be a conspiracy". Please! Give her credit for owning up to her error its more than many others have done in the Wisconsin political arena these days!

Interesting how the Journal poses the question as "scandal". There is no evidence of scandal, fraud, conspiracy, or anything unethical here. In fact, the evidence from both sides is to the contrary. Asserting that this is a scandal makes me question the rest of the story. Is there more to tell about these past events that might explain why the County Clerk still has that job? There are usually two sides to every story.

More fuel for the fire. We'll be hearing about this for years. There are no mistakes, only conspiracies.

You can go to virtually any ward in Milwaukee and if you spend enough time there you'll see people coached as to how to vote by handlers, but that's not a problem. You can run out of or mishandle ballots and that comes and goes as SOP.

This flub-up, even though it's been acknowledged as such by the head of the opposition, has to have been orchestrated by the Koch brothers from the confines of their secret volcano island hideout and carried out by a fem-bot they planted years ago for just this occasion. Brilliant.

I agree Jamz, it would be nice if people actually listened to news conferences so they could hear the story. I know it is way easier to read a line or two that is put in the paper that is followed up by the reporters opinion dripping with bias. We should even listen to Obama's speeches, at least we are able to hear what he has to say instead of it being twisted to sound pretty in print! The papers and local tv news love to create scandal and chaos, it makes for great stories. I'm sure their HS English teachers would be so impressed by the use of adjectives and alliteration.

MONDAY MADNESS IN MADISON!!
CAPITOL CHAOS!!
SCATHING SCANDAL IN WAUKESHA JOLTS JOANNE'S VISION OF VICTORY!!
UNION THUGS THINKTANK HAS THEORIES OF TICKLING WALKERS TINY TOES!!

As John said earlier, "It is essential to our democracy that people have confidence in the fundamental fairness of the electoral process."

The problem here is we all want to believe the electoral process is Fundamentally Fair, but it isn't. If two wolves and 1 goat are voting on what to have for lunch, it will never turn out well for the goat, ever. People who recognize this soon will have no "confidence" in our current system. Hiding votes, not counting votes, "human error" or even "mechanical error", these are all part of the system and will probably never leave. However if the illusion remains that all is well, and fair, and your vote really matters, then everyone sleeps better at night.

Two wolves and a goat?!... Who are the wolves here?

I think it is the Dems/ Libs / Union Bosses are the wolves... the goat, taxpayers of Wisconsin.

It is funny how we got to importance of a supreme court race in April, with voter turnout to rival a Gubernatorial or Presidential race.

This mistake in a normal cycle would have gone largely unnoticed in other election years, but because so many political intrests are at stake it is being magnified; and the real point will be missed.

Why is this election so important? Because the Libs/Unions/Dems want to block a change in the law that would essentially make the union bosses a political dinosaur. This whole process from the election of Walker to the misreporting in Waukesha is nothing but a power struggle to keep the status quo... Union Bosses collecting lots of tax payer money... to funnel into campaigns of democrats, who become elect representatives... of theirs. The poor goat (taxpayer) never even had a chance to voice a "naaa" till now.

If you don't belive that... pay attention to how quickly the union membership was tossed under the bus by the Union Bosses as soon a the bill was introduced. It was no more... "we will not conceed payments for benefits.." (see Gov. elect articles in December) to ..."of course eveyone should contribute, but he (Walker) and his bill are about union busting..."

It is still two wolves... just a whole lot more goats now.

How about a recall effort for Waukesha County Clerk Nickolaus? Though a Republican, I might support a Dem effort for this type of recall. A recall for the Waukesha County Clerk might be warranted in light of the continued mistakes she has exhibited in her elected duties to record and post election results properly. Though I support the Prosser election, I do not support any of the recall efforts underway - sour grapes from both the Dems and Republicans since the FAB 14 created this mess to begin with. However, after reading the Waukesha County Clerk's record for bungling multiple election results, why wouldn't her substandard operating methods warrant a recall?

The 14 are anything but FAB... FIB comes closer.

Seriously, shut up about the unions. No one gives a damn about the unions. This is about how a woman who has been an IT tech/computer specialist for about 20 years magically came up with 14k votes a day after the election. Then instead of calling the election officials, she leaks the info to the right wing media. She didn't even tell the canvassers. She has worked for Prosser and Walker. She writes computer programs. There is no save button in MS Access, it automatically saves whenever you do anything or import anything. She has done shady election stuff before. She was told she had to change her shady election process because she had too much power in it but she refused. She had 2 days to create 14k votes and cover her tracks. The only evidence is on her personal computer in her office and since she is a computer expert she could have covered up any evidence. When she was interviewed she was acting guilty as sin. No one can deny that. Honest people don't stammer like that. And as for that "democrat" who "confirmed" her results, who the hell is she? Some nice trusting old lady who knows NOTHING about computers. She is a democrat in Waukesha county, something tells me she isn't exactly "in the loop". She holds no office what so ever. She wouldn't know what a computer altered election result would look like. Her word means nothing to me. She is an internet scammers dream. WAY too many coincidences. If this happened in Dane county the right would be screaming fraud!

Even if this IS a mistake on her part, there is no way people are going to be convinced. The right wingers would be cool with it even if she told them it was fraud as long as it worked and with all these "coincidences" no one with a skeptics mind will EVER believe that she didn't cheap. I mean its like this. If you had a puppy who has been known to tear up shoes is found in a room with torn up shoes. Is it possible the shoes were torn up before the puppy got there? Maybe, but you would never believe the puppy didn't do it.

Honestly I don't know anything about Al Franken or Minnesota. All I know is he was a comedian that became a politician which kind of freaks me out. I am talking about this particular instance and how NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENED a lot of people are going to think what the news around the country (except for your super hardcore right or left wing crap) is saying, and that is the fact that if you look at who this woman is and what her history is, it LOOKS REALLY SHADY.

And to the guy who said if this happened in Madison that he would accept it, you are a complete liar and we all know it. ANYONE would be suspicious of that, even the bluest democrat. Big difference is they wouldn't lie about it like you OR admit it. They would just shut up and hide until it was all sorted out. Then no matter how if sorted out they would be on the fence about it.

See there aren't that many differences between Ds and Rs. They both know they have shady politicians in their parties. They both know their politicians lie, at least the smart ones know it. The big difference is the fact that Dems are willing to admit that there are shady liars on both sides while Republicans try and act like Republicans are great upstanding people despite constant evidence to the contrary. Its the level of hypocrisy.

The partisan comments miss the point––the credibility of the democratic process is jeopardized by this kind of incompetence. First off, the Microsoft Access system has an automatic save function, which makes the explanation a bit mystifying. A thorough investigation and recount will establish the credibility of the process and give an accurate count of Brookfield's votes––a win/win in my book.

These are optical scan ballots, right? The results should not need to be entered by hand. Anyone with minimal computer skills can figure out how to have the results downloaded automatically to avoid this kind of error. I don't know if these revised election results are fraudulent, but the explanation Nickolaus offered is completely inadequate. She is grossly incompetent, dishonest, or both.

So I guess according to tbone nobody in Brookfield voted and all of these votes where placed by the clerk. And I understand tbone, also that Brookfield votes for demacrats more than Republicans?

Brookfield is mostly hard working successful people, not takers and would obviously vote heavily Republican

She didn't enter the amount in the column correctly and thats all it is get over it!

Her job is to count votes. She failed to do her job. Fire her!

@Neil -

She is an elected official so she can not be fired.

She actually did her job. She found an error in the "unofficial" totals reported to the AP and corrected the error before the votes became official.

The problem was further compounded by Kloppenberg running out foolishly and claiming victory when leading by only 200 "unofficial" votes. (Which IMO says a lot about her decision making skills). Once the totals are official we will know the winner of the election. Then the losing side can ask for a recount if they wish, or just concede and allow the state to get on with its business.

If not fired then recalled. She is a disgarace to the county. Anyone that can't do their job has no business retaining it.

Good luck recalling her in Waukesha County. Did you happen to see the vote totals in the election? It was 70%+ for Prosser. She may resign or not run again, but there is no chance whatsoever of her being recalled.

Let me guess... you've never made an error at you job in your entire life. You may not like it but she did do her job which is getting the "official" totals correct.

This seems to be an honest mistake. not trading cigarettes for votes. Do you really think she would put her carreer at risk by holding up votes for no apparent reason? All the numbers match the districts. She didn't bus in a bunch of conservatives from IL. All the buses were taken by the Dems anyway!

Nickolaus at least should lose her job for the reason of incompetence. She's just made too many mistakes in the last 6 years and they all had to do with her own personal computer..........I think she's just another money grabbing Republican.

"she's just another money grabbing Republican"

As compared to an entitlement taking liberal?

I agree with Gary. Too many mintakes over the years. She is in charge and she should take the consequences for any incompentency in her group.

Democrat or Republican makes no difference. Incompetency in office does make a difference. The honorable thing for her to do is to resign given her track record of incompetency over the course of several elections.

"She is in charge and she should take the consequences for any incompentency in her group."

I don't think anyone is argueing that, it's the "on purpose" claims the left is making that I disagree with.

It is quite entertaining watching the left act like little children having a hissy fit. I do thank her for that!

@Gary. This isn't the right forum, but I couldn't let your comment about big oil subsidies go unchallenged. This is something I hear all the time from the left. Can you supply me with examples of those subsidies? My research shows that domestic oil industries are taxed at about 40%, which is higher than the average for other industries. Additionally, subsidies do NOT go toward oil and gas, but to alternative energies, which is like dumping money down a large black hole. Domestic oil industries are also mandated by the government to produce a percentage of their product from alternative energies--ergo, alternate energy subsidy. This tail-chasing is not their logic or desire--Democrats!

As far as the Koch Brothers and the execution of the top 1% of our country's producers--that would be cutting off your nose to spite your face. The top 1% pay 39% of all government revenue...where would they make that up? From you, of course.

TBone- Why would someone who wants Prosser to win intentionally withhold close to 11000 votes for him? Sounds to me like she was working for Kloppenburg and got busted during the canvass!!!!! You might have a point if she withheld votes from a city who supported Kloppenburg!

People this isn't rocket science! All you have to do is look at the numbers posted from each city the night of the election INCLUDING BROOKFIELD'S NUMBERS and add them up. You will find she left one out from the total from the County. The numbers haven't changed since election night from each city. She simply left one out of the total. Call it a mistake or intentional who cares the numbers are real and available to everyone. in fact the Brookfield patch posted the figures the morning after the election. THEY HAVE NOT CHANGED!!!!. JUST NOT ADDED TO THE TOTAL!!!!!! For the life of me I can't see any advantage by not reporting Brookfield's numbers the night of the election; all that it has done is create a feeling of scandal. Explain to me the advantage of not reporting the numbers?

If your claim is that if only we knew earlier about these 11000 votes for Prosser we could have found more votes for Kloppenburg then you are the one trying to cheat!!! What would have been the difference?

The real problem that conservatives seem to have with Al Franken is that he is the first DEMOCRAT with a showbiz background to be elected to statewide or national office. Where was the outrage when Republican song-and-dance man George Murphy was elected senator? Or Republican actor Ronald Reagan was elected governor and president? Or when Republican bodybuilder and action star Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor? (Plus the Republican actor from "The Love Boat," whose name I forget.) Be honest, conservatives. Admit that a qualified candidate came come from any field --- including the arts and show business --- and that you don't like Franken solely because he's a liberal who won.

"If your claim is that if only we knew earlier about these 11000 votes for Prosser we could have found more votes for Kloppenburg then you are the one trying to cheat!!!" Who are you arguing against? I don't think anyone said that at all. You can't turn what looks like (notice I said LOOKS LIKE, not is) a fraudulent GOP scam into an indictment against the other side. Also notice Walker said he wouldn't let the unions, "steal back" the election. Why use the term, "steal back?" How can one, "steal back" something that wasn't stolen from them in the first place? Freudian slip if I ever have heard one.

People in Brookfield are "successful" and "not takers"? Really? If they are so successful and non-greedy, then why are they so rabid about getting more tax cuts for the wealthy (i.e. themselves)? It's all about taking, my friend, and taking from those who can least afford to give (the sick, elderly, schoolchildren, the disabled). State and local taxes as percentage of income have steadily declined since 1995, but for these folks, it's never enough. They won't be happy until they are contributing nothing at all to the larger community.

Well until they add up everything you'll never know whether she double counted Brookfield. Just because she used the same numbers as reported doesn't mean she didn't distribute the votes from that city to other places and then claim it was zero, only to readd the numbers.

This has to be recounted. Maybe it is just incompetence, but can anyone just be trusted with something so important? How the hell was she allowed to be the only one to oversee the final counts on a perosnal computer?

right on!!

No surprise here Karen & I bet nobody else either.
Waukesha County is THEE most republican county in the State & if you were not aware of that fact, you live under a rock...or are a dem in denial.
People ARE sick & tired of paying & paying, the well is dry people. Enough IS Enough !

Some of the above "comments" are a real hoot. Conspiracies behind every tree, eh? Sounds like the Art Bell Fan Club is alive and well. But how does all of this connect up with the Kennedy assassination, Area 51 and anniversary of the death of Elvis? Enquiring minds want to know...

All I am saying is if you look at the facts this woman has a shady past. She worked directly for AND ALMOST WENT TO PRISON FOR HER ILLEGAL WORK FOR PROSSER! If you look at the facts a rational person has to wonder. Of course, the republican cult is not a group of rational people.
But I am totally with you guys on the whole pissed off at welfare queens thing. I get so angry when I see people who keep having kids on the tax payers dime. Its a disgrace and the fact of the matter is most of the offending parties are NOT Wisconsin natives. I think we should have a law saying you can't get Wisconsins welfare unless you are from here or have worked here for 5 years or something like that. Most native Wisconsonites have enough dignity to know that being a sponge is wrong and are embarrassed to get government help and therefore get off of it ASAP. Its the career welfare recipients that are screwing us.
Where you Republicans lose me is when you start trying to blame the working class for this. When did it become the Police and Teachers fault that some people are lazy and breeding out of control? Teachers and police are what we need to keep that sort of thing in check.
And of course the current economic ruin/gas prices is the Bush's fault. Thats what happens when you start 2 wars that can't end. The man took over with a SURPLUS (like Walker) then gave away the surplus to his buddies (like Walker) and started a war (like Walker). Thank god we have Obama to clean up the mess.

And before you start making assumptions I am a small business owner. Never been in or benefited from a union.

And as for confidence in the electoral system and integrity, why did she wait 29 hours to tell government officials? Why did she tell right wingnut "news" sources a full day before the election officials?

I don't understand the whole republican mind set of, "Cheating and breaking the rules and being crooked is ok as long as it benefits me." Even if this was an accident, which is possible, she has been told to change her election methodology several times but she literally laughed in the auditors face.

The only reason she will be keeping her job is because the GOP knows she is willing to break rules for them. Obviously there are about a million people who could do her job better. So why does she have the nomination and thus the job? Because she is willing to do shady things no one else is.

Ha yeah. I do enjoy a good drunken internet political rant/ramble.
As for the pitchforks and protesters, how do you protest gas prices?
BY NOT BUYING IT!
Why do you think there are so many mopeds (most per capita in America) and hybrids (most per capita in America) and bicycles bike/paths (most per capita in America) in Dane county? Because we are about solutions, not blame.
And if some idiot hadn't given away 800 million dollars to build a train then there would be even more options that didn't involve buying gas. What did he say he was going to do with the money? Fix the roads? Oh wait, he lied about that. He knew that money was only for a train (and jobs) and that he couldn't use it for roads but he lied anyway.
And then 2 weeks ago he wanted money from the federal government to build a train? And then this week it turns out the guy who would have profited from that train money illegally bribed Walker when he was running? It starts to make sense huh? And how about that 3 time DUI kid he hired at 80k+ a year to pay back another guy who "donated" to him?
All Walker has done in his first 100 days is pay back the fat cats who own him and take revenge on the middle class that didn't vote for him and people smarter than him because he is jealous that they didn't get kicked out of college for cheating like he did.

How do you people defend his actions? I am curious.