Milwaukee Newspaper Identifies Attorney Looking into Waukesha County Clerk

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is identifying the attorney that is looking into a request for an investigation into Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus’ election night snafu that caused Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg to declare victory over Justice David Prosser, only to have Prosser later be named the winner, as a former Dane County assistant district attorney.

The Milwaukee-based newspaper is reporting that Tim Verhoff informed the Kloppenburg campaign about the concerns that were raised following Nickolaus’ error.

Nickolaus came under national media attention after an election night mistake in reporting the unofficial results to the Associated Press caused Kloppenburg to declare victory with a razor-thin margin. However, Nickolaus forgot to include the results from the entire city of Brookfield when submitting the election results.

Instead, when the votes from Brookfield were counted, Prosser was named the winner. A statewide recount that ensued confirmed Prosser’s re-election.

The move came during a shaky political climate nearly two months after Gov. Scott Walker introduced his budget repair bill, which called for limits in collective bargaining for all public employees except for police and fire employees. Angry with Walker’s legislation, thousands of protesters descended daily upon the Wisconsin State Capitol.

Meanwhile, 14 Democratic senators fled to Illinois to avoid voting on the measure, effectively stalling the vote for weeks because the Wisconsin Senate did not have a 2/3rds majority present to constitute a quorum that was required for the financial bill. Republicans later changed how the bill was presented and passed the budget repair bill.