No criminal charges for Nickolaus, Primary dates

Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus will not face criminal charges for the errors she made during the April Supreme Court election between incumbent Justice David Prosser and challenger Joanne Kloppenburg.

The Government Accountability Board investigated the matter after Nickolaus did not release the city of Brookfield’s vote totals, 14,315 in all, until two days after the election. The release and subsequent counting of those votes gave Prosser the victory instead of Kloppenburg.

The GAB investigation found”no evidence that indicates Clerk Nickolaus intentionally omitted the City of Brookfield results on Election Night… Each facet of the investigation uncovered areas for improvement, but did not immediately reveal any intentional misconduct on the part of the Waukesha County Clerk.”

Nickolaus released a statement late yesterday, which read, “I am pleased that the investigation confirmed the reporting error in the April 5th spring election was an honest mistake.” She also pointed out how the August recall elections were handled “properly” by her office. She concluded by stating, “I will honor all Government Accountability Board recommendations by working with their staff on writing procedural documentation and look forward to rebuilding the trust of Waukesha County residents in the election process as it is the foundation of our democracy.”

Losing the trust of the public is what GAB Board Chair Thomas H. Barland highlighted in the letter to Nickolausdetailing the changes she made. ”

“Your failure to post election returns at the reporting unit level on Election Night led candidates for the office of Supreme Court Justice, Wisconsin voters and members of the media at the state and national level to believe the election for State Supreme Court Justice was within 200 votes when in fact unofficial returns would have shown a difference of more than 7,000 votes out of approximately 1.5 million votes cast. That significantly undermined public confidence in the conduct of elections in Wisconsin and Waukesha County,” the former Republican state representative and Eau Claire judge wrote. “As a result state and local election officials, and you in particular, will have to regain the trust of the Wisconsin electorate in the administration of elections in Wisconsin and Waukesha County.”

PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY

We’ve chronicled here in the past Wisconsin’s pending legislation to move the state’s presidential primary later in the calendar, but the main news nationally are the states who are going in the opposite direction.

As The Hill reports, Wisconsin native and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus “is facing one of the biggest challenges of his tenure — juggling the party’s presidential primary calendar,” because states like Florida, Michigan and Arizona are jumping the traditional calendar to gain greater influence. Currently, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina are allowed by the GOP to go before the March 6 Super Tuesday day and Priebus threatened any state that usurps their place on the calendar would forego half of their delegates at the GOP National Convention.

Well, Florida is planning to move its primary date to Jan. 31 which will move all four of those early states up to right after the new year. Michigan and Arizona already flouted the rules by moving their presidential selection elections up to Feb. 28 to get an edge on the Super Tuesday states. Also, Missouri, Alaska, Georgia and North Dakota are talking about moving up as well.

Currently, Wisconsin residents vote in a presidential primary on the third Tuesday in February, at the same time that they nominate nonpartisan candidates for the spring election. But to acquiesce to Priebus’s directive, Assembly Bill 162, sponsored by Rep. Gary Tauchen (R-Bonduel), would move that to the first Tuesday in April, which is when the main spring election takes place. It unanimously passed out of the Assembly Committee on Election and Campaign Reform and passed the legislature this fall.