Results of 21st Senate District Will Be Official Tuesday
The Racine County Clerk's office will conduct its board of canvass Tuesday. Once they're finished, we'll know the official winner of the June 5 recall election between Sen. Van Wanggaard and presumed Senate-elect John Lehman.
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In about 24 hours residents of the 21st Senate District will know whether or not the results from June 5 will hold.
The historic Wisconsin recall elections kept Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and two Republican state senators in office. Sen. Pam Galloway was also under recall, but she resigned because of family health issues. Rep. Jerry Petrowski (R-Stettin) went up against fellow Republican Rep. Donna Seidel (R-Wausau) for Galloway's seat and won.
Here in the 21st, though, the unofficial results put former Sen. John Lehman ahead of Sen. Van Wanggaard, who was trying to fend off the recall effort against him.
Margin-of-victory for Lehman is narrow. By the end of the night - Wednesday morning, really - only 779 votes separated the two. State Democrats rejoiced because Lehman's win tips the balance of power in the state Senate to the Democrats by one seat, 17-16, even though the Legislature is not in session until January.
On election night Lehman claimed victory, saying he was confident the results would hold. Wanggaard said he thought the race was too close to call. On Wednesday, Wanggaard's campaign sent out a statement saying he was going to wait out the county's board of canvass before making any decisions about a potential recount.
Recounts are not automatic; a candidate must request a recount, but that person is responsible for the costs if the vote difference is more than one-half of one percent. At almost 800 votes, Wanggaard would be charged the cost of a recount if he requests one because there's a little more than 1 percent separating his vote total from Lehman's.
According to Racine County Clerk Wendy Christensen, there were 581 outstanding ballots throughout the 21st Senate District with no way to predict how many of those would come in on time. Voters had to have their absentee ballot postmarked by June 5 and to their community's clerk by 4pm Friday.
James R Hoffa
4:52 pm on Monday, June 11, 2012
District 21 - Lehman v Wanggaard: Numbers show strange results.
Walker received 36,505 votes in the District.
Wanggaard received 35,476 votes.
For a discrepancy of: 1,029 votes.
Barrett received 36,572 votes in the District.
Lehman received 36,255 votes.
For a discrepancy of: 317 votes.
There were 1,218 scattering and undervotes recorded in the senate race.
Conservative leaning precincts recorded nearly 2.8 times the number of undervotes in comparison to liberal leaning precincts. That translates to roughly 783 scattering / undervotes as supporting Walker, and 435 having supported Barrett.
Wanggaard's loss of support from Walker voters is over 3 times the amount of support that Lehman lost from Barrett supporters. If we eliminate Wanggaard's share of the scattering/undervotes from his discrepancy, that still leaves us with 246 cross-ticket votes - people that voted for both Walker and Lehman. While Barrett supporters strictly voted for Lehman.
Conclusion: Either something is off here, or lazy/traitorous conservatives cost Wanggaard the election.
GearHead
9:09 pm on Monday, June 11, 2012
Expect legal challenges. This isn't over.
Racine Progressive
10:46 pm on Monday, June 11, 2012
Apparently quite a few that voted for Walker just could not pull the lever for Wanggaard.
How dare those lazy/traitorous voters make up their own mind.
Keith Best
7:54 am on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
I'm hearing all kinds of allegations of Fraud from Racine County.
This should not surprise you for in one form or another..........ACORN lives.
Robert Paulson
8:53 am on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Little or no trust in the voting results plus a sideways look at the people that operate the system is the fallout from recent big union and other "non-political" groups actions. Well done!! Your semi-legal activities have undercut a basic building block of the country -- free and open elections.
P
9:19 am on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Perhaps the electorate prefers to have two parties JOINTLY in power, rather than just one, as a check and balance to the system overall.
Remember when "the other side" was referred to as "the friendly opposition"?