David Prosser confirmed winner in Wis. judge race

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Politico:

Wisconsin’s elections board on Monday certified judge David Prosser as the winner of the hotly contested race for the state Supreme Court, handing a victory to conservative activists who flocked to the race as a referendum on Gov. Scott Walker’s law restricting collective bargaining for public sector unions.

The results of a state-funded recount by Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board have Prosser, the incumbent, leading liberal JoAnne Kloppenburg by 7,004 votes – a margin of just .46 percent out of nearly 1.5 million votes cast.

Kloppenburg, a state assistant attorney general, requested the recount last month after the initial count had Prosser leading by a slightly larger margin of 7,316 votes. At the time, she said that voting “anomalies” were “widespread” in the April 5 election.

The race became a referendum on Walker’s controversial union law, which he signed into law in March. The law is still being challenged in court and could be taken up by the state Supreme Court.

Kloppenburg was barely in the running before Walker, a Republican, made his push on collective bargaining. In a nonpartisan primary held just as the labor battle was heating up in February, Prosser won 55 percent of the vote, while Kloppenburg came in second with 28 percent.

But the mobilization of progressive and labor groups helped put Kloppenburg in the running, and conservative groups responded in kind with support for Prosser. Both sides spent a combined total of about $5 million on the race, attracting national attention for the kind of vote that usually wouldn’t even get much attention within the state.

Explaining the discrepancy between the initial vote totals and the recount totals, board chairman Thomas Barland said Monday that “it was not a surprise that minor mistakes were discovered, investigated and corrected,” the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported. “This happens in all elections.”

Kloppenburg has until May 31 to decide whether she wants to sue to contest the election.
________

Prosser is measuring the drapes while desperate Dems try to figure out what to do next.

[Valin]

Happiness is not the only thing money can't buy you, apparently it can't buy you a Supreme Court seat either.

[Valin]

WestVirginiaRebel

 

On a related note:

 

Hot Air: Wisconsin DoJ files brief with state Supreme Court to vacate Sumi ruling

Ed Morrissey

5/27/11

 

Color the Wisconsin Department of Justice less than impressed with Maryann Sumi. According to a brief filed today with the state Supreme Court, Judge Sumi made so many errors in her ruling that threw out the PEU reform passed by the state legislature that it amounts to “a fundamental denial of due process”:

 

The state Department of Justice asked the state Supreme Court on Friday to immediately vacate a judge’s decision that voided a plan by Gov. Scott Walker to greatly limit collective bargaining for public workers.

 

In its filing, the department said Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi made so many errors in a ruling Thursday and that the Supreme Court should throw out her decision even before it hears oral arguments in the case June 6.

 

“These errors amount to a fundamental denial of due process and reveal the extent to which the circuit court was willing to exceed its jurisdiction in order to invalidate a politically controversial act of the Legislature,” wrote Deputy Attorney General Kevin St. John.

(Snip)

[AceRimmer]

I won't lead the crowd in Wisconsin yet, but it's starting to sound like "Ding, dong! The witch is dead!"