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Thursday, April 21, 2011

What "conservative bloggers" was JoAnne Kloppenburg casting aspersions on yesterday as she asked for an investigation?

At her press conference yesterday, JoAnne Kloppenburg — the Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate — asked for an independent investigation of the Waukesha County Clerk based on a list of things that she said "raise significant questions." 

One of the things on the list was: "the prior knowledge by conservative bloggers." I believe that "knowledge" refers to the clerk's failure to include one city's votes in her first report. But Kloppenburg casts aspersions on bloggers as evidence of something worrisome going on.

Who are the bloggers? I'd like the links to the blog posts that support the statement! 

I'd like to know if I'm one of the "conservative bloggers," and, if so, why am I being called "conservative"? (At the link, above, you can see why I suspect the reference is to me [and how I got my knowledge]. ) And who are the other bloggers?

Kloppenburg is stirring up public suspicion of the vote-counting process. That is a very serious matter, especially for someone who aspires to a seat on this highest court in the state. She should be scrupulous about the way she presents facts and should not manipulate public opinion. If the evidence does not warrant mistrust, it is injudicious to stimulate mistrust.

Her list of things that "raise significant questions" about the process in Waukesha felt long, but what is really on it?
a one-and-a-half day delay in notifying any responsible party about a county vote total that [the clerk] knew was incorrect

the absence of any reasonable basis for her explanations

the prior knowledge by conservative bloggers

the complete absence of knowledge by the canvass board until the press conference
It sounded like big list, but there are only 4 items. And 2 of the items are the absence of anything. An absence of evidence might be probative of something that matters, but you have to build a foundation for why it matters.

The first item on the list is simply the mistake we all know about: The clerk, Kathy Nickolaus, initially reported zero votes from the city of Brookfield and later provided a vote total. (The vote total is easily consistent with what you would expect from Brookfield.)

The second item is an attempt to make something out of what looks like a mistake. What is the evidence that it's anything but a mistake? The most substantive point is the prior knowledge by conservative bloggers.

So, really, this is important! What was she talking about?

ADDED: Before writing this post, I emailed campaign@kloppenburgforjustice.com: "What does 'the prior knowledge by conservative bloggers' refer to? I would like the names of the bloggers and the links to the blog posts that support this statement." That was 2 hours ago. I'll let you know if I get a response.

AND: Still no response from the Kloppenburg campaign, but a few people have indicated that they think one of the "conservative bloggers" was Christian Schneider, writing at National Review's Corner, noting the "computer error... revealed today" approximately 1 hour before the press conference. I don't know who the other bloggers were or what their sources were.

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