election

Such libel she perpetrates against a couple of hundred thousand innocent Wisconsin voters!

We're talking about State Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, who, during a post-election interview on WISN-TV in Milwaukee, suggested that the GOP voter-fraud bogeymen gave President Obama his win in the Badger state. Darling said that had the GOP's silly Voter ID law (forestalled temporarily by court order in a pending case) been in place Nov. 6, it would have "absolutely" made a difference in the final tally:

The increasingly conservative editors at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel loves them some Paul Ryan. The newspaper doesn't print much whenever Ryan mutters ambiguities in response to questions about his policy positions. But if the GOP's vice presidential pick stops anywhere inside the Wisconsin border to glad-hand passersby, the paper is all over it like Condi Rice at a wedding. And today's edition takes that tendency to new heights.

Paul Ryan is turning out to be about as conventional a GOP hack as you could find. Toned pecs and boyish charm notwithstanding, his stands on actual policy issues and his willingness to round the corners of sharply defined subjects is nothing at all new.

And he even dutifully reads out of the GOP blast-fax hymnal. Obama is raiding Medicare! he complains, even though Ryan would do the very same thing only worse. Obama bankrupted the country with stimulus monies Ryan would never accept -- except that he did. And so on. The latest Ryan genuflection to conservative conventional wisdom:

I'd be the last person to say that I didn't think last night was disappointing. I don't see any point in being angry about it since democracy is often messy, and yesterday was no exception.  I'm making an attempt to get back to a normal work and family life, as I'm sure many of us are this morning.  But before I start trying to earn a living again, I just have a few thoughts about last night:

• Let's try to be both gracious in defeat, but still strong and united.  The united part is particularly important.  Even though the outcome yesterday was disappointing, that's no reason to give up or disband. A grassroots movement for fairness, balance and genuine fiscal responsibility in Wisconsin needs to continue.  But in the meantime, go pet your dogs, kiss your spouse, do your laundry, and catch up with all the other stuff you've neglected for months.  We need sane strong people.
• The obscene amount of money poured into Wisconsin for this election on both sides only points out again how important it is to stop the madness of unlimited campaign funding. I'm going to be glad to feel I can actually watch the local news again without wanting to throw things at the incessant stream of political ads. I'm not going to blame the big Republican wins last night on advertising, but I have to ask - doesn't this unceasing flow of attack ads just make people fed up and make them not want to participate?  Is that what anyone actually wants?

A mixup at the Milwaukee Elections Commission, which didn't follow state law in drawing to see the order of candidates for alderman on Tuesday's ballot, will benefit a number of incumbents. And the challengers, as you might expect, aren't happy.

Ray Harmon (pictured)and Jan Pierce have filed complaints.

That aside, there's also the question of why the city's election commission head went out of her way to fix the ballot for one incumbent and didn't bother to look at the other races. Her explanation is less than totally transparent, it appears.

But let's back up. A Journal Sentinel story explains:

All GOP nowWith tongue firmly in cheek, I can't help but imagine that the Scott Walker recall petition drive might be so hugely successful that it turns out to be doomed. How so? Well, read along for my little flight of fancy (although it may not seem as fanciful by the time you finish):

The Government Accountability Board's Kevin Kennedy drafted a memo the other day on how the GAB will review the recall petitions. The memo says the GAB will need to hire temporary workers to handle the massive review of hundreds of thousands of collected signatures within a tight timetable. In order to ensure nonpartisanship, wrote Kennedy, the temporary staffers wiill go through criminal background checks and their histories will be examined for signs of possible political bias, including camapign donations.

Vote-o-maticBev Harris, who created the national group Black Box Voting to examine vote-counting irregularities -- particularly in the case of electronic vote gathering -- this morning sent out an excellent analysis of the current situation with respect to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. 

The short summary: It ain't over, yet.

Read the following excerpt from her post. There's much more in the full post available at the Black Box web site -- the URL to the full article listed below. All bold-facing is mine:

Here's the next twist: The Journal-Sentinel reports in a story posted Sunday April 10 at 1:00 a.m., "Prosser ahead by 6,744 votes out of nearly 1.5 million cast." 

The newspaper is reporting roughly 400,000 more votes than the state has posted, and this is AFTER the Brookfield votes were posted. So what's missing on the state spreadsheet? By 4:14 p.m. Friday the state had not reported about 30 wards from the city of Madison, much of Fon du Lac, [sic] and several Oshkosh wards... .