Kloppenburg campaign responds to disenfranchisement charges

Don't forget it!

Kloppenburg's campaign manager contacted me about the thrown out votes of Cistersian nuns

Here are the facts about the ballots in Sauk County:

• There were 18 absentee ballots in Sauk County from the Town of Sumpter that didn’t have a witness signature on the envelope.
• Wisconsin law says that those ballots are defective and should not be counted. All ballots should be treated equally under the law.
• When those ballots without a witness signature were discovered, the clerk from the town was consulted and she said she knew the nuns who cast those ballots
• It was the decision of the Canvass Board, which is made up of Republicans and Democrats, that the ballots should not be counted and that a “draw down” should be conducted.
• No one from the Kloppenburg campaign asked that those ballots not be counted. No one from the Kloppenburg campaign objected to those ballots.
• The Canvass Board revisited the matter the next day and, after consulting with the Government Accountability Board which said they had acted properly, voted again to reaffirm the decision not to count the ballots.

I replied with the following:

And also are you saying a local clerk found the ballots and brought forth the irregularity directly to the Canvass Board and not to the attention of the Kloppenburg campaign.  The Kloppenburg campaign found out about the ballots at the time they were brought before the Canvass Board?

I don't dispute that the law was followed here, as I put in my comments. 

I will post if I receive a reply.

Apparently more people than I thought care about 18 Cistercian nuns.  My stats for yesterday were three times higher than my highest Z-spike. 

Also here are my final comments on the matter yesterday.

Let me clarify my position, the law is followed here which results in an injustice that these nuns votes are not counted. Kloppenburg does nothing illegal here but it is an injustice that these sisters votes cannot count. The Sumpter Clerk is at fault for the irregularity. Women embracing poverty and silence can't be expected to be legal experts in election protocol to make sure their voice is heard.

There was also some bozo claiming cloistered nuns shouldn't vote.

I thought about contacting the Diocese of Madison on the issue to see if they would comment, but I do have a day job and only 24 hours in a day.  

For now, I'll leave you with my comment on Twitter on the matter.

badgercatholic

Kloppenburg might want to be nice to those nuns. It's going to take her a miracle to win the recount.

UPDATE:

From Kloppenburg campaign:

Yes, I am saying that the irregularity was brought to everyone’s attention during the normal course of the recount. The absentee ballots that were unwitnessed were found in the course of doing the recount. That has happened in other counties as well.

The law is very clear: unwitnessed absentee ballots are deficient. Because the ballot is no longer with the envelope (since who votes for whom is private) the normal course of action is to do a ‘draw down’ of ballots. That was done. It was not done at our request….it was done because it is the law and because it is normal procedure.

Our campaign didn’t make any objections to the way the absentee ballots without signatures were being handled. So the claim by the Prosser folks that we did, is untrue.

UPDATE 2:

From Dad29:

The Prosser witness is willing to go under oath on this one.

It does seem highly unlikely that the Kloppenburg people were somehow oblivious to what was going on.  But that is what they are saying.