Control of Senate in Balance: Issues Arise in Racine Recount

With control of the state Senate at play in a recount of a Racine recall election, election officials said Tuesday they found some missing voter signatures.

A day after potentially , many were found on different pages in the same poll book.

Even if signatures are not found, those voters will be counted, the state Government Accountability Board said.

Incumbent Republican Sen. Van Wanggaard lost to Democratic challenger John Lehman by 834 votes in the June 5 recall for the state's 21st Senate District. Wanggaard asked for a recount on June 15 and since the process started on June 20, has picked up a net eight votes.

Racine County Clerk Wendy Christensen confirmed that, for reasons chalked up to human error, in Ward 1 from the City of Racine, extra pages were in the poll book. Instead of having two pages of identical information that matched, Christensen's deputies found pages of information that didn't match the corresponding page but also found pages with signatures further in the poll book.

"We did find quite a few signatures on different pages in the same poll book so many of the 'missing' signatures were recovered," she said. "I don't know how many, but they were found on duplicate pages in the same poll book."

Patch asked Jonathan Strasburg, attorney for the Republicans, if he was considering filing a lawsuit.

"We aren't considering that option at this point," he said. "We're going to let the process play out and see how this is going. It's not on our radar screen right now."

Randy Nash, a representative for the Democratic Party, said an lawsuit from the Republicans would be frivolous and just another delay tactic.

"If they do bring a lawsuit, I will immediately ask the judge for them to pay my fees," he said. "It would be a frivolous move on their part and just one more thing they're doing to delay the inevitable."

As for how the errors happened in the first place, Deputy Clerk Patricia Hampton said it was simple human mistake.

"For some reason, the extra pages were created when that is not the procedure," she said.

Poll books should be reconciled at each polling location before any results tapes are run.

"Yes, that is the procedure," Christensen said. "There should be matching sets of pages, one in each poll book. The mistakes happen when there are extra copies. If there's a problem with a number not matching or a signature missing, then the reconciliation should be done before the results are tabulated."

Procedures have been put in place to help recount officials get through the poll books if this issue comes up again. Christensen said workers matching poll book pages are highlighting names that don't appear on a corresponding page and then highlighting the matched name when it's found.

Recount workers are going a little slower so observers from both Wanggaard's and Lehman's campaigns can tabulate on their own how many missing signatures there could be.

Still, Christensen said the recount is on track. Recount workers and volunteers were feeding ballots into the machines from the Village of Mount Pleasant, the last municipality outside the City of Racine to be tabulated, while work on the city's poll books continued.

"We'll see what today brings," she said.