The Woman Who Could SPOIL WISCONSIN [View all]

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Kathy Nickolaus (Credit: AP/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel/Michael Sears)


Kathy Nickolaus is the nation's most notorious election clerk -- and Dems worry that she's out to help Scott Walker




" For months, progressives have raised the alarm over what role Kathy Nickolaus, the nation’s most notorious county election clerk, would play in counting tonight’s Wisconsin recall results. Their fears were echoed by the pro-Walker Editorial Board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which wrote in April that Waukesha County’s voting snafus on her watch had “damaged her office’s credibility beyond repair.”



In a closely-watched judicial election in April 2011 – seen as a referendum on Scott Walker’s agenda – a seeming Democratic victory evaporated when Nickolaus announced she’d found 14,000 misplaced ballots from her deep-red county two days after the election. In April’s GOP presidential primary, issues with Waukesha County’s election computer system led to more delayed results, as paper voting slips were gathered from across the county and put up on the walls of an office to be counted. This morning, the county executive office’s chief of staff told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that Nicklaus “will not be involved in the vote counting this evening,” but that she could be in the office anyway. Some say that’s not good enough.



As Sargent notes, “similar assurances were given a month ago” for the recall primaries. But a TV news station caught Nickolaus present in the office, and appearing “to be very much in charge of the count.” An anonymous observer told Mother Jones’ Andy Kroll that Nickolaus “was there, and she made it seem as if she was in control.” Republican Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas told the Waukesha Freeman that vote counts were being handled by a deputy clerk, and that “I’d prefer that she wasn’t here on election night but I can’t ban her from the building anymore than I can ban anyone else from the building.” Nickolaus and Vrakas did not return requests for comment this morning.



Reached over e-mail, We Are Wisconsin spokesperson Kelly Steele said, “Despite the dog-and-pony show in Waukesha County suggesting she’s stepped aside all evidence – except her own word – points to her remaining firmly in control of the most controversial jurisdiction in Wisconsin, which just happens to be the heart and soul of Scott Walker’s base.”






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http://www.salon.com/2012/06/05/the_woman_who_could_spoil_wisconsin/singleton/


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