Democratic party official calls on Nickolaus to resign
By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel
April 12, 2011 9:42 a.m
Waukesha - A Waukesha County Democratic Party leader has called on Republican Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus to resign immediately in light of her performance in reporting results from last week's election and the fallout since.
Party Chairman Victor Weers said in a news release Tuesday that not only has the clerk's vote-counting and reporting process produced problems, but "Ms. Nicholaus (sic) has willfully ignored pleas to repair her broken reporting process in an open and technologically reliable way."
He said, "We must have a county clerk that we can trust to do this important work of the people with competence, security and openness. Waukesha must have a new county clerk now."
Nickolaus was not available for comment Tuesday morning, a clerk in her office said. She has not responded to emails asking whether she intended to resign.
Nickolaus came into the spotlight last Thursday after she announced in a news conference that on election night she had failed to save on her computer more than 14,000 votes reported from the City of Brookfield and issued an unofficial summary report to the media that was wrong.
She corrected the totals during the official canvass. The change meant that incumbent Supreme Court Justice David Prosser had surpassed challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg by about 7,500 votes, reversing the 204-vote lead she held statewide after election day.
Both campaigns and state election officials from the Government Accountability Board have since pored over her canvass report and municipal vote records to verify the results. No recount can be requested until every county has certified its results to the state, expected later this week.
On Tuesday, Kevin Kennedy, executive director of Government Accountability Board, said while nothing criminal has been observed so far, Nickolaus' business practices "need to be changed to bolster public confidence."
A Democratic member of the Waukesha Board of Canvassers initially said at the news conference that she stood by the canvass of votes and the dramatic change reported by Nickolaus. On Monday, the woman, Ramona Kitzinger, issued a statement on the Waukesha County Democratic Party website backing off that endorsement.
She said she only learned of the 14,000 vote difference minutes before Nickolaus' news conference and that when the three-member board reviewed Brookfield's results during the canvass, no mention was made of the changed vote totals.
Kitzinger called the dramatic shift "both shocking and somewhat appalling."
In his statement Tuesday, Weers said, "What has happened as a result of this debacle is that confidence in the outcome of the entire spring election has been severely diminished. We have become the focal point of all people's fears about their votes being accurately counted. This incident has raised questions about the voting process in Waukesha County from local, state, national and worldwide media sources. We now must begin the process of making sure this never happens again in Waukesha County."
Nickolaus, he said, has ignored the "hyper sensitivity" in today's political environment toward election results where voters must be assured of transparent and secure processes.
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