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.
Josh Eidelson 