The state Supreme Court election is now officially over. “I have reviewed the record. I have reviewed the evidence, I have reviewed the law,” candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg said during a Madison press conference on Tuesday in which she announced she won’t seek judicial review of the results of the race for state Supreme Court. “It would serve no purpose to bring a suit with insufficient legal basis. That is not the kind of lawyer that I am.” Kloppenburg said her campaign “did the right thing” in requesting a recount, the final results of which showed incumbent Justice David Prosser winning by just over seven-thousand votes. Kloppenburg picked up 683 votes in the recount her campaign requested, while Prosser gained 371 votes. Kloppenburg said she called Prosser to congratulate him.
But Kloppenburg said a sufficient number of problems were uncovered during a statewide recount – and particularly in Waukesha County – to warrant an investigation by the state Government Accountability Board. “We uncovered so many irregularities and anomalies around the state, and especially in Waukesha County, that there needs to be a thorough review of how elections are run in Wisconsin that improvements need to be made and the process needs to be fixed,” she said. “We need resources to assure that ballots are secure, that ballots are properly counted, that poll books are properly reconciled. We uncovered hardly any, if any at all, evidence that there’s any problems up front, with voters.”
And Kloppenburg made a point of stating that she consulted only with her closest advisors to arrive at the decision to not seek judicial review of the election. “I did not have donuts with the ‘union thugs’ this morning before I came to this press conference.”