Wisconsin Supreme Court race too close to call
Sue Gatterman, seated second from left, Barbara Schrank and Fred Schrank, fingers crossed, supporters for Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg, all watch election results in the supreme court race between Kloppenburg and incumbent David Prosser in Madison, April 6, 2011. / AP
MADISON, Wis. - A little-known prosecutor who tapped voter unrest in a race to unseat a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice has taken a slight lead as late election returns trickle in.
JoAnne Kloppenburg leads Justice David Prosser on Wednesday morning by just 369 votes of the nearly 1.5 million cast. Ninety-nine percent of precincts have reported results.
The election that turned into a referendum on Republican Gov. Scott Walker's polarizing proposal restricting union rights remains too close to call.
Under Wisconsin election law, a candidate has three days after the official results have been tallied to request a recount. The candidate must specify a reason for the request, such as a belief a mistake was made in the counting or some other irregularity.
Tea Party, labor spend big in Wisconsin court race
Turnout shattered predictions, fueled largely by the efforts to make the election more about Walker and the union fight than the officially nonpartisan Supreme Court race itself.
An assistant state attorney general, Kloppenburg began her campaign with almost no name recognition and faced what looked like an uphill fight against Prosser.
But her campaign has surged in recent days as her supporters worked to focus anger over Republican Gov. Scott Walker's divisive collective bargaining law onto the conservative-leaning Prosser. The law's opponents hope a Kloppenburg victory will tilt the Supreme Court to the left and set the stage for the court to strike down the law. Election officials in Madison and Milwaukee have noted higher voter interest in what would have been an otherwise sleepy contest.
The measure strips most public workers of nearly all their collective bargaining rights. Walker has said the move is needed to help balance the state's budget. Democrats say it's designed to cripple unions, which are among their strongest campaign supporters, and tens of thousands of people spent weeks at the state Capitol protesting the plan.
The law eventually passed, but is on hold as legal challenges make their way through the courts. Many expect the state Supreme Court ultimately will decide the issue.
The seven-member high court is officially nonpartisan. But Prosser, who is seeking a second 10-year term, is seen as part of a conservative four-justice majority. Kloppenburg's allies have presented her as an alternative that would tilt the court's ideological balance to the left.
Prosser has told The Associated Press he doesn't necessarily agree with the law. Still, bitter Democrats have portrayed him as a Walker clone, helping Kloppenburg's campaign gain traction over the last few weeks.
Pat Heiser, 76, said the union struggles weighed heavily on her decision to vote for Kloppenburg.
"I think collective bargaining should be a human right," Heiser said. "We're not slaves anymore; that ended in the 1860s."
Attorney Bill Finke said he normally votes conservative, and supported Prosser in part because he feared Kloppenburg had a political agenda.
"I'm concerned about having an activist judge on the court," said the 73-year-old from Bayside in suburban Milwaukee.
Outside groups, including the Tea Party Express and national labor organizations, have poured at least $3.1 million into a race that initially wasn't expected to be competitive. Prosser won a nonpartisan February primary with 55 percent of the vote, while Kloppenburg finished second out of four candidates with just 28 percent.
Walker has said he wouldn't interpret the election results as either an endorsement or indictment of his policies.
Madison city clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said 7,190 absentee ballots already had been submitted by Monday, outpacing the absentee count from the presidential primary of February 2008. High turnout in the liberal city would likely benefit Kloppenburg.
Witzel-Behl predicted a 60 percent turnout, which would be a record high for an April election since Madison started keeping records in 1984. Madison also has hotly contested mayoral and county executive races, but political observers suspect the statewide race is driving many local voters.
Statewide voter turnout reached 33 percent, shattering the pre-election prediction of 20 percent from the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board. April elections in recent years have had voter turnouts ranging from 18 percent to 21 percent.
The race was on track to be the most expensive Wisconsin high court contest in history. Groups backing both candidates spent $300,000 to $400,000 per day on TV ads right up until election day, according to a group that studies judicial spending.
Wisconsin has a recent history of costly Supreme Court races. Outside groups spent a then-record $3.4 million here in 2008, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a New York University program that tracks spending on judicial races. After a quiet 2009 race and no race in 2010, spending this year reached a new high — $3.5 million through Monday.
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nanc12--show me your proof or is it a mere rumor??????
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Good grief - why do I always have to do your research? I thought you lived in Wisconsin. Are you not able to type in jsonline.com???? Now they say 8000 votes were "found" in Waukesha County. I work with someone who is in charge of a precinct in New Berlin. She told us about one other precinct that couldn't balance and figured there would be more votes for Prosser. That's where the 200 came from. No way could they be off by 8000 without something extremely weird going on. How about you do your own research from now on???
Oh - and I expect you to charge Waukesha County with voter fraud after you finally read the article, just like you would if Milwaukee County had found 8,000 votes.
alk72188 Ja, I thinking about all those votes from Milwaukee and from Madison...since the end justifies the means" And since there are no moral absolutes...who cares if we have massive voter fraud.
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Hmm, agnes, I'll bet if some more votes were just mysteriously found, you'd be all over it as voter fraud, wouldn't you?
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That's funny - 1200 votes were found in Winnebago County and 200 in New Berlin, giving Prosser the lead. Where is Agnes' outrage at voter fraud??
(except in the instance of pedophilia which all of the three abrahamic religious texts fail to prohibit)
And thats the point. We have a separation of church and state
At the risk of a charge of pedantry, morals and moral absolutes are not the same thing.
alk72188 Ja, I thinking about all those votes from Milwaukee and from Madison...since the end justifies the means" And since there are no moral absolutes...who cares if we have massive voter fraud.
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Hmm, agnes, I'll bet if some more votes were just mysteriously found, you'd be all over it as voter fraud, wouldn't you?
I didn't say NO....I'm in the process to see the facts about this Gates Foundation, how much they really give to charities. I'll get back with the informatio ASAP
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Here's what you said: "By the way, the wealthy are liberal democrats who are also very greedy, they donate very small percentage of their wealth to charity"
By the way, I still haven't seen you provide the name of a repub who gave 85% of their wealth to charity.
LOL - looking up "this Gates Foundation" like it's an obscure charity. That's hilarious. Here, I'll help you: A link to their financial statements and tax returns http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/financials.aspx
And if that's too difficult, here's a Wikipedia link that calls it the "largest transparently operated private foundation in the world" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation. But you've never heard of it - priceless.