Friday, June 17, 2011

We Were Right About Supreme Court Justice David Prosser

Prosser tried to deny it after he admitted it, but we were right about him when we believed he would rule against the rights of Wisconsinites. What we didn't expect is for his corporate loyalty to be so blatant and swift. It makes me think back to the recent election and the 14,000 votes that won Prosser the seat for another 10 years, and it begs the question, is Prosser paying someone back?

There were very serious issues with that election that aren't being properly investigated, particularly with the lack of publicly verifiable election machine integrity and accuracy, including, most troubling, ballot security issues. Given the closeness of the election, the seriousness of the issues, and now doubts as to Prosser's impartiality and prudence raised by Supreme Court Chief Justice Abrahamson, I believe the election deserves a proper and full investigation by a group unaffiliated with Wisconsin elections.

Yes, I realize I'm getting very close to tinfoil hat territory here, but what's important, whether something nefarious occurred in the election or not, is closing the wide gaps in the openness and security of our elections so there isn't a doubt in future elections. And this clearly won't happen unless we get serious about investigating and fixing these issues, as serious as the Republicans are about suppressing Wisconsin voters and stripping rights from Wisconsinites.

Kloppenburg enumerated some of the issues when she conceded the election. Of the most serious issues, more than 150 ballot bags were open or torn. Kloppenburg said,
"Waukesha County had twice as many torn, open or unsealed bags as every other county in the state combined. In many cases, municipal clerks in Waukesha testifed the bags weren't torn when they left cities, towns and villages. So the security breaches occurred sometime when the bags were in Waukesha County's custody."
However, there wasn't enough information to conclude whether something nefarious occurred or not. Hence the need for a full investigation and reform. We'll be in a lot more trouble if we're questioning the integrity of not just a Supreme Court election but also 9 Senate recall elections, which could likely happen if these serious issues aren't fixed before. Yet, there's been no response that I'm aware of to Kloppenburg's letter from the GAB.

The GAB can't properly investigate the election, because, at the very least, they wrote the software that caused Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus's "human error." Notice how everyone is being careful to not call it what it is, a computer error. They definitely want us to believe the software had nothing to do with it, but that's wrong.

Besides software, the GAB works with and trains the very same people they are supposed to investigate. The GAB doesn't have the outsider's perspective required of a proper investigation. Plus, how can the GAB be trusted to fully investigate when the fault of many possible issues rests in their hands?

Also, the GAB is notoriously secretive. They need to change that behavior now, and although they improved a bit during the recount, it's another reason why they're not the right entity for investigating the election. Any investigation must be open and transparent, so we know exactly what's being investigated and how the conclusions were drawn. We haven't gotten that from the GAB.

The Democrats are even questioning the GAB's certification of the recall petitions for the 3 Democrats by filing a complaint in Dane County court to challenge the certifications. So, there's definitely enough doubt surrounding the GAB that it's clear they need to do some clean up of themselves and they're not fit for investigating the April 5th election.

We need to know our elections are truly open, clean and fair, and we must know before any more elections.

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