Wisconsin

Lost Ballots Put Republican Justice Ahead

After trailing by 200 votes.

The clerk in a heavily Republican county reversed the election for a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice when she announced that she'd failed to hit "save" on her computer when reporting votes, and so had 14,315 extra ballots yet to be counted. Those votes went heavily in favor of Republican Justice David Prosser, putting him ahead of union-backed challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg by 7,582 votes after trailing her by only 204. Prosser hailed the new votes, but Kloppenburg supporters cried foul, pointing out that the clerk, Kathy Nickolaus, had worked in the Assembly Republican caucus when Prosser served as the Assembly speaker. The fate of Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union bill may hinge on the results of Wisconsin's Supreme Court race, as the bill makes its way to a court currently skewing conservative by a single justice.