Wisconsin’s historic political year featured a first-ever recount in a Supreme Court election.The race between state Supreme Court challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg and incumbent Justice David Prosser appeared too close to call April 6th, hours after the polls closed, with Prosser holding a razor thin lead. “We look at the margin at the present moment, 585 votes as I understand it, and I think we feel pretty good about that margin,” he told supporters that night.
AUDIO: Bob Hague reports (1:30)
Kloppenburg was also not ready to concede, as the Associated Press reported the race was too close to call. Things got more confusing when Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus had problems relating to the vote total in her county. A human error led to thousands of votes for Prosser initially going uncounted – and when they were tallied, he had a commanding lead. With that, Prosser felt confident enough to declare victory on April 18
Not so fast, said Kloppenburg, who requested a recount two days later – based largely on those problems in Waukesha County. In the end Prosser gained 371 votes while Kloppenburg picked up 683 votes, not enough to change the outcome, given Prosser’s statewide margin of some 7300 votes.