Ho-hum...Another Uneventful Election Night in Waukesha County

With the two special recall elections of 2012 behind us, Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus has made it through both without incident.

Nickolaus’ office reported elections results numbers Tuesday evening without a hitch after she came under scrutiny in the past year for large election night flubs.

Results came out in a timely fashion Tuesday evening with final results reported by only delayed by large voter turnouts in areas such as Oconomowoc, where absentee votes were not counted until after the polls closed.

"Everything went very well,” said Shawn Lundie, chief of staff for Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas. "We’ve been working hard for the past several months to implement a system that would disseminate election results in a timely manner.”

Nickolaus on the April 2011 elections when she forgot to press save on results a Wisconsin Supreme Court race, which ended up switching the results in one of the most contentious elections in state history.

Her office got in the April 2012 race after results were released in an untimely fashion from her office and making observers and reporters add results manually from results taped onto the walls.

But there were no such problems on Tuesday.

Lundie said the county has worked to improve the system for reporting the results and was able to report 85 percent of the totals reported by the 10 p.m. news broadcasts, which he said was set as an internal target.

Waukesha County saw a massive presence at the polls Tuesday, with Town of Genesee reporting an 88 percent turnout in the election and Merton reporting a 99 percent turnout.

Because of the turnout, Nickolaus said many municipal clerks were unable to begin counting absentee votes until after the polls closed.

As expected, Gov. Scott Walker and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch easily carried the county on their way to winning the recall election against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Mahlon Mitchell.  

According to the unofficial results, Walker and Kleefisch carried every community in Waukesha County. With nearly all wards reporting by 11 p.m., Walker had 147,327 votes countywide compared to 55,539 for Barrett.

Kleefisch had 144,226 votes compared to 54,940 for Mitchell.

Here are the final, unofficial results in the communities within Patch's coverage area:

• Sussex: Walker collected 3,994 votes to Barrett’s 1,367, while Kleefisch won 3,904 votes to Mitchell’s 1,382.
• Menomonee Falls: Walker got 14,047 votes to Barrett’s 5,929; and Kleefisch took 13,762 votes to Mitchell’s 5,862.
• Muskego: Walker had 10,023 votes to Barrett’s 3,652 votes. Kleefisch collected 9,828 votes to Mitchell’s 3,600 votes.
• Brookfield: Walker got 16,943 votes compared to 6,121 votes for Barrett; and Kleefisch won 16,524 votes compared to 6,085 for Mitchell.
• Town of Brookfield: Walker collected 2,622 votes compared to 1,015 for Barrett; and Kleefisch won 2,568 votes to 987 for Mitchell.
• City of Waukesha, Walker collected 19,651 votes compared to 10,277 for Barrett. Kleefisch collected 19,133 votes, beating Mitchell who got 10,047.
• Town of Waukesha, Walker got 3,982 votes compared to 1,337 votes for Barrett. Kleefisch collected 3,897 votes to Mitchell’s 1,341.

Results will be canvassed by the county June 12.