You may remember Waukesha County (Wisconsin) Clerk Kathy Nickolaus. Last year, she miraculously found thousands of votes in a state Supreme Court election two days after the balloting, which threw the race to incumbent David Prosser over JoAnn Kloppenburg. A subsequent investigation showed that Nickolaus violated state law on her reporting of election results. Also, [...]

Kloppenburg has precisely the right attitude about this recount: “A recount may change the outcome of this election or it may confirm it, but when it is done, a recount will have shed necessary and appropriate light on an election that, right now, seems to so many people to be suspect.”

Exactly right. JoAnne Kloppenburg is, at this hour, within the 0.5% that would allow her to call for a recount paid for by the state. She should exercise the option. And extreme care should be taken with Waukesha County. This could all turn out to be perfectly legitimate. All doubt of that can and should be removed.

In a dramatic turnaround in a state Supreme Court election full of dramatic turnarounds in Wisconsin, Waukesha County’s clerk has announced that due to human error, vote totals for the city of Brookfield had not been included in the final totals for her county. The resultant addition added a net of 7,583 votes to David Prosser’s total, putting him in a commanding lead over JoAnne Kloppenburg.